Divine War In The Old Testament And In The Ancient Near East

The series Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft (BZAW) covers all areas of research into the Old Testament, focusing on the Hebrew Bible, its early and later forms in Ancient Judaism, as well as its branching into many neighboring cultures of the Ancient Near East and the Greco-Roman world.

Green traces these motifs through the Mesopotamian, Anatolian, Syrian, and Levantine regions; he argues that, in the end, Yahweh of the Bible can be identified as a storm-god, though certain unique characteristics came to be associated with him: he was the creator of all that is created and the self-existing god who needs no other."--BOOK JACKET.

What are the similarities and differences between Old Testament and Ancient Near Eastern war stories? In this study narratological analysis is applied to compare the ideology of the Old Testament book of Kings to the ideology of ten extrabiblical texts

This book, in minute detail, presents a polyphony of voices, perspectives and opinions, from which emerges a diverse but coherent representation of the complex relationship between religion and war in the Ancient Near East, Greece and Rome.

The first of its kind, this collection offers a constructive response to the question of holy war and Christian morality from an interdisciplinary perspective. By combining biblical, ethical, philosophical and theological insights, the contributors offer a composite image of divine redemption that promises to take the discussion to another level.

This volume sheds fresh light upon the phenomenon of narrative doubling in the Hebrew Bible. Through an innovative interdisciplinary model the author defines the notion of narrative analogy in relation to other literatures where it has been studied such as English Renaissance drama and makes extensive critical use of contemporary literary theory, particularly that of the Russian formalist Vladimir Propp. His exploitation of narrative doubling, with a focus upon the metaphorical, reorients our reading by uncovering a major dynamic in biblical literature. The author examines several battle reports and demonstrates how each could be interpreted as an oblique commentary and metaphor for the non-battle account that immediately precedes it. Battle scenes are revealed to stand in metaphoric analogy with, among others, accounts of a trial, a rape, a drinking feast, and a court-deliberation. Joshua Berman offers new insights to the ever-growing concern with the relationship between historiography and literary strategies, and succeeds in articulating a new aspect of biblical ideology concerning human and divine relationship.

How should we understand biblical texts where God is depicted as acting irrationally, violently, or destructively? If we distance ourselves from disturbing portrayals of God, how should we understand the authority of Scripture? How does the often wrathful God portrayed in the Old Testament relate to the God of love proclaimed in the New Testament? Is that contrast even accurate? Disturbing Divine Behavior addresses these perennially vexing questions for the student of the Bible. Eric A. Seibert calls for an engaged and discerning reading of the Old Testament that distinguishes the particular literary and theological goals achieved through narrative characterizations of God from the rich understanding of the divine to which the Old Testament as a whole points. Providing illuminating reflections on theological reading as well, this book will be a welcome resource for any readers who puzzle over disturbing representations of God in the Bible.

From the earliest days of Israel's existence as a people, holy war was a sacred institution, undertaken as a cultic act of a religious community. The concept of holy war, an intriguing and sometimes disturbing theme in the Old Testament, is given its most articulate expression in this classic study by the distinguished German scholar Gerhard von Rad. For Israel, the most important feature of holy war was the demand for faith in Yahweh's saving acts. However, von Rad argues, it was not Yahweh alone who acted; rather, because they envisioned Yahweh fighting on their behalf the Israelites themselves were inspired - and obliged - to fight even harder. In this regard, the actual events differed vastly from the picture given by the biblical narratives, which downplay and often exclude the human factor and stress the exclusive warlike action of Yahweh, thus equating holy war with absolute miracle.