Ancient Israelite Religion offers a brief, accessible, and perceptive account of the religious beliefs and practices of the ancient Israelites, analyzing the complex and varied ways in which they present and preserve themselves in the Hebrew Bible. Drawing on the most recent literary scholarship and archaeological evidence, the author provides a compelling account of how the culture of the Israelites changed over three great historical periods--the distant pre-monarchic age, the monarchies of Israel and Judah, and the Babylonian exile and return. The heart of the book is a rich description of...
Ancient Israelite Religion offers a brief, accessible, and perceptive account of the religious beliefs and practices of the ancient Israelites, analyz...
Texts about war pervade the Hebrew Bible, raising challenging questions in religious and political ethics. The war passages that readers find most disquieting are those in which God demands the total annihilation of the enemy without regard to gender, age, or military status. The ideology of the "ban," however, is only one among a range of attitudes towards war preserved in the ancient Israelite literary tradition. Applying insights from anthropology, comparative literature, and feminist studies, Niditch considers a wide spectrum of war ideologies in the Hebrew Bible, seeking in each case to...
Texts about war pervade the Hebrew Bible, raising challenging questions in religious and political ethics. The war passages that readers find most dis...
The story of Jacob and Esau is told in the book of Genesis. With his mother's help, Jacob impersonates his hairy older twin by dressing in Esau's clothes and covering his own hands and the nape of his neck with the hairy hide of goats. Fooled by this ruse, their blind father, Isaac, is tricked into giving the younger son the blessing of the firstborn. This is only one of many biblical stories in which hair plays a pivotal role. In recent years, there has been an explosion of scholarly interest in the relationship between culture and the body. Hair plays an integral role in the way we...
The story of Jacob and Esau is told in the book of Genesis. With his mother's help, Jacob impersonates his hairy older twin by dressing in Esau's clot...
Treating Old Testament stories as the product of an oral traditional world, this title sets biblical narrative in a broad cross-cultural context and reveals much about the richness and complexity of the ancient Israelite civilization that produced it.
Treating Old Testament stories as the product of an oral traditional world, this title sets biblical narrative in a broad cross-cultural context and r...
This book is an essential resource for understanding the question of the Bible's relationship to orality. Susan Niditch offers a strong argument for the continuity of the literature of the Israelites. She helps the modern reader look at the Bible as living words, breathing life into us daily, instead of seeing the text as a foregone artifact.
Volumes in the Library of Ancient Israel draw on multiple disciplines--such as archaeology, anthropology, sociology, linguistics, and literary criticism--to illuminate the everyday realities and social subtleties these ancient cultures...
This book is an essential resource for understanding the question of the Bible's relationship to orality. Susan Niditch offers a strong argument fo...
Susan Niditch's commentary on the book of Judges pays careful attention to the literary and narrative techniques of the text and yields fresh readings of the book's difficult passages: stories of violence, ethnic conflict, and gender issues. Niditch aptly and richly conveys the theological impact and enduring significance of these stories.
The Old Testament Library provides fresh and authoritative treatments of important aspects of Old Testament study through commentaries and general surveys. The contributors are scholars of international standing.
Susan Niditch's commentary on the book of Judges pays careful attention to the literary and narrative techniques of the text and yields fresh readi...
Susan Niditch's commentary on the book of Judges pays careful attention to the literary and narrative techniques of the text and yields fresh readings of the book's difficult passages: stories of violence, ethnic conflict, and gender issues. Niditch aptly and richly conveys the theological impact and enduring significance of these stories.
The Old Testament Library provides fresh and authoritative treatments of important aspects of Old Testament study through commentaries and general surveys. The contributors are scholars of international standing.
Susan Niditch's commentary on the book of Judges pays careful attention to the literary and narrative techniques of the text and yields fresh readi...
Works created in the period from the Babylonian conquest of Judea through the takeover and rule of Judea and Samaria by imperial Persia reveal a profound interest in the religious responses of individuals and an intimate engagement with the nature of personal experience. Using the rich and varied body of literature preserved in the Hebrew Bible, Susan Niditch examines ways in which followers of Yahweh, participating in long-standing traditions, are shown to privatize and personalize religion. Their experiences remain relevant to many of the questions we still ask today: Why do bad things...
Works created in the period from the Babylonian conquest of Judea through the takeover and rule of Judea and Samaria by imperial Persia reveal a profo...
Looks at Genesis 1-11 from the perspectives of comparative literature and cultural anthropology. This book reveals how Hebrew narratives of chaos, creation, and cosmos structure a mythic-literary world and create an order for human existence.
Looks at Genesis 1-11 from the perspectives of comparative literature and cultural anthropology. This book reveals how Hebrew narratives of chaos, cre...
