In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus of Nazareth makes reference to one of the oldest beliefs in the ancient world--the malignity of an Evil Eye. The Holy Scriptures in their original languages contain no less than twenty-four references to the Evil Eye, although this is obscured by most modern Bible translations. John H. Elliott's Beware the Evil Eye describes this belief and associated practices, its history, its voluminous appearances in ancient cultures, and the extensive research devoted to it over the centuries in order to unravel this enigma for readers who have never heard of the Evil...

In the present volume, Elliott addresses the most extensive sources of Evil Eye belief in antiquity--the cultures of Greece and Rome. In this period, features of the belief found in Mesopotamian and Egyptian sources are expanded to the point where an ""Evil Eye belief complex"" becomes apparent. This complex of features associated with the Evil Eye--human eye as key organ of information, eye as active not passive, eye as channel of emotion and dispositions, especially envy, arising in the heart, possessors, victims, defensive strategies, and amulets--is essential to an understanding of the...

The Evil Eye is mentioned repeatedly throughout the Old Testament, Israel's parabiblical writings, and New Testament, with a variety of terms and expressions. The Old Testament (Greek Septuagint) contains no less than fourteen text segments involving some twenty explicit references to the Evil Eye (Deut 15:9; 28:54, 56; Prov 23:6; 28:22; Tob 4:7, 16; Sir 14:3, 6, 8, 9, 10; 18:18; 31:13; 37:11; Wis 4:12; 4 Macc 1:26; 2:15; Ep Jer 69/70). At least three further texts are also likely implied references to an Evil Eye (1 Sam 2:29, 32; 18:9), with some other texts as more distant possibilities....

""Affirming that 1 Peter represents from beginning to end a coherent and integrated line of thought, Prof. Elliott seeks to show in these two essays how this pastoral letter, forged to respond to the alienated situation of its readers, employs the conceptuality of the moral discourse and pivotal values of honor and shame that reigned in its contemporary world. The book is an excellent introduction to Prof. Elliotts seminal work in applying social-scientific analysis of this New Testament writing, and will richly reward its careful reader.""
--Paul J. Achtemeier
author of 1 Peter...

This first full-scale study of the Evil Eye in the Bible and the biblical communities has traced in four volumes evidence of Evil Eye belief and practice in the ancient world from Mesopotamia (c. 3000 BCE) to Late Roman Antiquity (c. 600 CE). The fourth and final volume considers the literary and material evidence of the unabated thriving of Evil Eye belief and practice in Israel following the destruction of the Jerusalem temple in 70 CE (chapter 1) and in early Christianity (chapter 2) through Late Antiquity (500-600 CE), with a brief reference to Evil Eye lore in early Islam. Numerous...