Ancient Near Eastern Thought And The Old Testame Introducing The Conceptual World Of The Hebrew Bible

Download or read book Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament written by John H. Walton and published by Baker Academic. This book was released on 2006-11-01 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Much of the Old Testament seems strange to contemporary readers. However, as we begin to understand how ancient people viewed the world, the Old Testament becomes more clearly a book that stands within its ancient context as it also speaks against it. John Walton provides here a thoughtful introduction to the conceptual world of the ancient Near East. Walton surveys the literature of the ancient Near East and introduces the reader to a variety of beliefs about God, religion, and the world. In helpful sidebars, he provides examples of how such studies can bring insight to the interpretation of specific Old Testament passages. Students and pastors who want to deepen their understanding of the Old Testament will find this a helpful and instructive study.

Download or read book Ancient Near Eastern Themes in Biblical Theology written by Jeffrey Jay Niehaus and published by Kregel Academic. This book was released on 2008 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tracing parallels between biblical accounts and pagan cultures of the ancient Near East, Niehaus explores creation and flood narratives; literary and legal forms; and the acts of deities and the God of the Bible. He reveals not just cultural similarities but spiritual dimensions of common thought and practice, providing an overarching view of the story of the Bible. - Publisher.

Download or read book Readings from the Ancient Near East written by Bill T. Arnold and published by Baker Academic. This book was released on 2002-09 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Comprehensive, up-to-date collection of primary source documents (creation accounts, epic literature, etc.) gives insight into the Ancient Near East and the Old Testament.

Download or read book Ancient Israelite Literature in Its Cultural Context written by John H. Walton and published by Zondervan. This book was released on 1994-07 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book surveys within the various literary genres (cosmologies, personal archives and epics, hymns, and prayers) parallels between the Bible and Ancient Near Eastern literature.

Download or read book I'm Katherine written by Walter Warren Harper and published by . This book was released on 1996 with total page 462 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A memoir about Katherine Harper by her husband Walter Warren Harper, both the parents of noted African-American poet, Michael S. Harper, who edited this publication"--From Antiquarian Booksellers' Association of America website.

Download or read book Genesis 1 as Ancient Cosmology written by John H. Walton and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2011-06-23 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The ancient Near Eastern mode of thought is not at all intuitive to us moderns, but our understanding of ancient perspectives can only approach accuracy when we begin to penetrate ancient texts on their own terms rather than imposing our own world view. In this task, we are aided by the ever-growing corpus of literature that is being recovered and analyzed. After an introduction that presents some of the history of comparative studies and how it has been applied to the study of ancient texts in general and cosmology in particular, Walton focuses in the first half of this book on the ancient Near Eastern texts that inform our understanding about ancient ways of thinking about cosmology. Of primary interest are the texts that can help us discern the parameters of ancient perspectives on cosmic ontology—that is, how the writers perceived origins. Texts from across the ancient Near East are presented, including primarily Egyptian, Sumerian, and Akkadian texts, but occasionally also Ugaritic and Hittite, as appropriate. Walton’s intention, first of all, is to understand the texts but also to demonstrate that a functional ontology pervaded the cognitive environment of the ancient Near East. This functional ontology involves more than just the idea that ordering the cosmos was the focus of the cosmological texts. He posits that, in the ancient world, bringing about order and functionality was the very essence of creative activity. He also pays close attention to the ancient ideology of temples to show the close connection between temples and the functioning cosmos. The second half of the book is devoted to a fresh analysis of Genesis 1:1–2:4. Walton offers studies of significant Hebrew terms and seeks to show that the Israelite texts evidence a functional ontology and a cosmology that is constructed with temple ideology in mind, as in the rest of the ancient Near East. He contends that Genesis 1 never was an account of material origins but that, as in the rest of the ancient world, the focus of “creation texts” was to order the cosmos by initiating functions for the components of the cosmos. He further contends that the cosmology of Genesis 1 is founded on the premise that the cosmos should be understood in temple terms. All of this is intended to demonstrate that, when we read Genesis 1 as the ancient document it is, rather than trying to read it in light of our own world view, the text comes to life in ways that help recover the energy it had in its original context. At the same time, it provides a new perspective on Genesis 1 in relation to what have long been controversial issues. Far from being a borrowed text, Genesis 1 offers a unique theology, even while it speaks from the platform of its contemporaneous cognitive environment.

Download or read book Ancient Conquest Accounts written by K. Lawson Younger, Jr. and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 1990-05-01 with total page 393 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Works on Old Testament historiography, the 'Conquest', and the origins of ancient Israel have burgeoned in recent days. But while others have been issuing new reconstructions this novel work presents a close reading of the biblical text. The focus is on the literary techniques that ancient writers employed in narrating stories of conquest, and the aim is to pinpoint their communicative intentions in their own contexts. This reading is enhanced by engagement with the important discipline of the philosophy of history. Ancient Conquest accounts, replete with extensive quotations from Assyrian, Hittite and Egyptian conquest accounts, is a learned and methodologically sensitive study of a wide range of ancient Near Eastern texts as well as of Joshua 9-12.