This study of family religion in the Babylonian, Ugaritic and Israelite civilizations opens up a little studied province of ancient Near Eastern religion. By focusing on the interaction between family religion and state religion, the author offers fascinating insights in to the development of the religion of Israel.

This study of family religion in the Babylonian, Ugaritic and Israelite civilizations opens up a little studied province of ancient Near Eastern religion. By focusing on the interaction between family religion and state religion, the author offers fascinating insights in to the development of the religion of Israel.

This SBL Press edition of an essential Brill reference work deals with the religious practices of the family in the ancient Babylonian, Syrian, and Israelite civilizations. On the basis of a wealth of documents from both the private and the literary realm, the book gives an exhaustive description and analysis of the rites of the ancestor cult and the devotion to local gods. The author demonstrates the role of these two aspects of family religion in the identity construction of its followers. The section dealing with Israel pays particular attention to the relationship between family religion and state religion. The emergence of the state religion under King Saul marked the beginning of a competition between civil and private religion. Though the two had great influence upon each other, the tension between them was never resolved. A study of their interaction proves to be a key for the understanding of the development of Israelite religion during the monarchic period.

The first book to explore the religious dimensions of the family and the household in ancient Mediterranean and West Asian antiquity. Advances our understanding of household and familial religion, as opposed to state-sponsored or civic temple cults Reconstructs domestic and family religious practices in Egypt, Greece, Rome, Israel, Mesopotamia, Ugarit, Emar, and Philistia Explores many household rituals, such as providing for ancestral spirits, and petitioning of a household's patron deities or of spirits associated with the house itself Examines lifecycle rituals – from pregnancy and birth to maturity, old age, death, and beyond Looks at religious practices relating to the household both within the home itself and other spaces, such as at extramural tombs and local sanctuaries

In this volume the presupposition is investigated whether women in a polytheistic society had a better position than women in a monotheistic society. To this end the social and religious position of women in Ugarit according to its literary texts is compared to that of women in Israel according to the Hebrew Bible, while the wider context of the ancient Near East is also taken into consideration. After an overview of feminist biblical exegesis, the book discusses the roles of women in the family and in society. It also provides an analysis of the roles of women as religious specialists and as worshippers. Finally, the data on the position of women in the literary texts is compared to that in non-literary texts.

Isaiah 24–27, the so-called Isaiah Apocalypse, is often regarded as one of the latest sections added to the book of Isaiah. The formation and interpretation of these chapters are widely recognized as important matters for understanding the compositional history of Isaiah, emerging religious thought in the Persian period, and scribal techniques for late biblical materials. The essays in this volume explore these and other important issues of Isaiah 24–27 in light of the abundant recent research on these chapters. In addition, this volume outlines new directions forward for research on these pivotal chapters and their place in Isaiah and the prophetic literature generally. The contributors are Micaël Bürki, Paul Kang-Kul Cho, Stephen L. Cook, Wilson de A. Cunha, Carol J. Dempsey, Janling Fu, Christopher B. Hays, J. Todd Hibbard, Hyun Chul Paul Kim, Beth Steiner, John T. Willis, Archibald L. H. M. van Wieringen, and Annemarieke van der Woude.

In this volume, the concept of quality is discussed both in the Bible and in the scholarship that evolved around the Bible. Scholars of various backgrounds analyse the Bible and its narrative and enumerative (or legal) way of qualifying the world around. According to the intrinsic theological view of the Bible, it is God himself who is the touchstone of any qualitative judgement. From literary and historical point of view though, we can - and we often do - judge Bible and things around us differently. The volume presents an intersection of biblical theology, biblical criticism and biblical archaeology in their quest for (their respective renditions of) quality.

In the spring of 1928, a Syrian farmer was plowing on the Mediterranean coast near a bay called Minet el-Beida. His plow ran into a stone just beneath the surface. When he examined the obstruction, he found a large man-made flagstone that led into a tomb, in which he found some valuable objects that he sold to a dealer. Little did he know what he had discovered. In April of 1929, C. F. A. Schaeffer began excavation of the tombs, but a month later he moved to the nearby tell of Ras Shamra. On the afternoon of May 14, the first inscribed clay tablet came to light--thus the beginnings of the study of Ugarit and the Ugaritic language. Seventy-five years have passed, and the impact of this extraordinary discovery is still being felt. Its impact on biblical studies perhaps has no equal. In February 2005, some of the preeminent Ugaritologists of the present generation gathered at the Midwest Regional meetings of the American Oriental Society to commemorate these 75 years by reading the papers that are now published in this volume. The first five essays deal with the Ugaritic texts, while the last three deal with archaeological or historical issues.

A more complete picture of how procreation and childlessness are depicted in the Bible In the Book of Genesis, the first words God speaks to humanity are "Be fruitful and multiply." From ancient times to today, these words have been understood as a divine command to procreate. Fertility is viewed as a sign of blessedness and moral uprightness, while infertility is associated with sin and moral failing. Reconceiving Infertility explores traditional interpretations such as these, providing a more complete picture of how procreation and childlessness are depicted in the Bible. Closely examining texts and themes from both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, Candida Moss and Joel Baden offer vital new perspectives on infertility and the social experiences of the infertile in the biblical tradition. They begin with perhaps the most famous stories of infertility in the Bible—those of the matriarchs Sarah, Rebekah, and Rachel—and show how the divine injunction in Genesis is both a blessing and a curse. Moss and Baden go on to discuss the metaphorical treatments of Israel as a "barren mother," the conception of Jesus, Paul's writings on family and reproduction, and more. They reveal how biblical views on procreation and infertility, and the ancient contexts from which they emerged, were more diverse than we think. Reconceiving Infertility demonstrates that the Bible speaks in many voices about infertility, and lays a biblical foundation for a more supportive religious environment for those suffering from infertility today.

The observation of the Jubilee Year 2000 by many Christian groups worldwide generated renewed interest in the theological, historical, and socio-economic aspects of the biblical jubilee. This book begins with an analysis of the historical origins of the jubilee institution in ancient Israel, and then traces the reinterpretation of the jubilee and the text of Leviticus 25 through the Old Testament, the Second Temple literature, and the Qumran documents. It demonstrates that, with the passage of time, the socio-economic implementation of the jubilee is increasingly de-emphasized in favor of an eschatological interpretation, in which the jubilee itself functions as a type of the final age, and cycles of jubilee years are employed to calculate when this age will arrive.