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The Origin and Character of God: Ancient Israelite Religion through the Lens of Divinity

Online ISBN:
9780190072575
Print ISBN:
9780190072544
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
Book

The Origin and Character of God: Ancient Israelite Religion through the Lens of Divinity

Theodore J. Lewis
Theodore J. Lewis

Blum-Iwry Professor of Near Eastern Studies

Blum-Iwry Professor of Near Eastern Studies, Johns Hopkins University
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Published online:
20 August 2020
Published in print:
9 July 2020
Online ISBN:
9780190072575
Print ISBN:
9780190072544
Publisher:
Oxford University Press

Abstract

The Origin and Character of GOD: Ancient Israelite Religion through the Lens of Divinity is an up-to-date and comprehensive reference work for readers of all backgrounds. It looks synthetically at the vast topic of God—exploring questions of historical origin (El and Yahweh traditions), how God was characterized in literature (mythic warrior, king, parent, judge, holy, compassionate) and how he was represented in iconography, both materially and abstractly. Using the window of divinity to peer into the varieties of religion experience, it explores the royal use of religion for power, prestige and control balanced against the intimacy of family and household religion. It probes priestly prerogatives and cultic status, prophetic challenges to injustice, and the pondering of theodicy by poetic sages. The volume presents a well-researched work that is a reliable guide to reconstructing the religion of ancient Israel’s past within its ancient Near Eastern context. It is a distillation of decades of scholarship. It is methodologically sophisticated, acknowledging the inherent difficulties involved in such a reconstruction. It carefully examines what we can know from limited source material (textual and archaeological) and how we should evaluate our data when we stand at such a great cultural distance from these ancient societies. This volume presents a work that is worthy of the ideas imagined by the people who lived in ancient Judah and Israel, ideas that should captivate a modern audience for their intrinsic quality, for their historical relevance and for their resonance with modern questions of faith and practice.

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