Asherah and the Cult of Yahweh in Israel PDF Download

Author: Saul M. Olyan
Publisher: Atlanta, Ga. : Scholars Press
ISBN:
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 128

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Author: Judith M. Hadley
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521662352
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
Recent archaeological discoveries have encouraged scholars to reinvestigate the Israelite religion. In this book, Judith Hadley uses these discoveries, alongside biblical material and non-biblical inscriptions, to examine the evidence for the worship of Asherah as the partner of God in the Bible. By investigating the Khirbet al-Qom and Kuntillet 'Ajrud inscriptions, for example, where the phrase 'Yahweh and his Asherah' is frequently in evidence, the author asks what the ancient Israelites meant by this, how they construed the relationship between Yahweh and Asherah, and whether in fact the term actually referred to an object of worship rather than to a goddess. The author also evaluates more recent scholarship to substantiate her conclusions. This is a detailed and brilliant study which promises to make a significant contribution to the ongoing debate about the exact nature of Asherah and her significance in pre-exilic Israel and Judah.

Author: William G. Dever
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
ISBN: 0802863949
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 361

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Book Description
This richly illustrated, non-technical reconstruction of "folk religion" in ancient Israel is based largely on recent archaeological evidence, but also incorporates biblical texts where possible.

Author: Mark S. Smith
Publisher: Harper San Francisco
ISBN:
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description
In this history of the development of monotheism, the author explains how Israel's religion evolved from a cult of Yahweh as a primary deity among many to a fully defined monotheism with Yahweh as sole god. Repudiating the traditional scholarly premise that Israel was fundamentally different in culture and religion from its Canaanite neighbors, he shows that the two cultures were fundamentally similar.

Author: John Day
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 0567537838
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
This masterly book is the climax of over twenty-five years of study of the impact of Canaanite religion and mythology on ancient Israel and the Old Testament. It is John Day's magnum opus in which he sets forth all his main arguments and conclusions on the subject. The work considers in detail the relationship between Yahweh and the various gods and goddesses of Canaan, including the leading gods El and Baal, the great goddesses (Asherah, Astarte and Anat), astral deities (Sun, Moon and Lucifer), and underworld deities (Mot, Resheph, Molech and the Rephaim). Day assesses both what Yahwism assimilated from these deities and what it came to reject. More generally he discusses the impact of Canaanite polytheism on ancient Israel and how monotheism was eventually achieved.

Author: Mark S. Smith
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195167686
Category : Bibles
Languages : en
Pages : 344

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Book Description
One of the leading scholars of ancient West Semitic religion discusses polytheism vs. monotheism by covering the fluidity of those categories in the ancient Near East. He argues that Israel's social history is key to the development of monotheism.

Author: Patrick D. Miller
Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
ISBN: 9780664221454
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 378

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Book Description
The historical and literary questions about ancient Israel that traditionally have preoccupied biblical scholars have often overlooked the social realities of life experienced by the vast majority of the population of ancient Israel. Volumes in the Library of Ancient Israel draw on multiple disciplines -- such as archaeology, anthropology, sociology, and literary criticism -- to illumine the everyday realities and social subtleties these ancient cultures experienced. This series employs sophisticated methods resulting in original contributions that depict the reality of the people behind the Hebrew Bible and interprets these scholarly insights for a wide variety of readers. Individually and collectively, these books will expand our vision of the culture and society of ancient Israel, thereby generating new appreciation for its impact up to the present.Patrick Miller investigates the role religion played in an expanding circle of influences in ancient Israel: the family, village, tribe, and nation-state. He situates Israel's religion in context where a variety of social forces affected beliefs, and where popular cults openly competed with the "official" religion. Miller makes extensive use of both epigraphic and artefactual evidence as he deftly probes the complexities of Iron Age culture and society and their enduring significance for people today.

Author: Daniel E. Fleming
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108835074
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 339

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Book Description
Provides a ground-breaking new interpretation with which to consider and contextualize the name Yahweh before its relationship with Israel.

Author: Darlene Kosnik
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780985609542
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 316

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Book Description
God's Wife: the Goddess Asherah, Wife of Yahweh. Although a disconcerting notion to some, a galaxy of ancient artifacts reveals that goddess worship existed in Ancient Israel and that Asherah was but one of Yahweh's wives. Following a trail of archaeological discoveries, the forgotten story of God's wife, the quintessential Hebrew Mother Goddess Asherah, is slowly reconstructed in this extensive study with over 550 archaeological drawings and 1,183 references. Mentioned over 40 times in the Hebrew Bible, the archaeological evidence identifies Asherah as Yahweh's primary wife and reveals she is the only surviving goddess in Palestine by the end of the 7th-6th centuries BCE. Asherah's stunning history unfolds as the shovels of archaeology resurrect what the pens of history forgot. *A subject pioneered by Raphael Patai's The Hebrew Goddess (1967) and William G. Dever's Did God Have a Wife? Archaeology and Folk Religion in Ancient Israel (2005).

Author: Norman Karol Gottwald
Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
ISBN: 9780664219772
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 396

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Book Description
This work offers a reconstruction of the politics of ancient Israel within the wider political environment of the ancient Near East. Gottwald begins by questioning the view of some biblical scholars that the primary factor influencing Israel's political evolution was its religion.