Land And Temple

Cults and temples of the ancient world regularly held assets in land, often naming a patron deity as landowner but managing the land themselves and affording it sanctity protections. Arrangements of the sort can provide essential background to the Hebrew Bible's assertion that the Land of Israel is "God's land." They can also shed light on the poorly understood references in biblical and early Jewish literature to the sacred landholdings of the Judean priesthood or Jerusalem temple. Such properties could result from endowments earmarked for priestly clans, pledges in exchange for loans issued from the holy treasuries, and crimes of fraud meant to impede foreclosure by a creditor. These are but some of the ways in which priests of the Second Temple period (516 BCE-70 CE) were involved in the everyday affairs of Jewish agriculturalists. In Egypt too the Oniad temple at Leontopolis appears to have commanded over a sacred portion of land. This aspect of the early Jewish cult's institutional reach far beyond the confines of its sanctuaries underscores its similarity to the religious organizations of the ancient Mediterranean world, particularly the great theocratic "temple states" of the East. Touching on the fields of religion, archaeology, economics, and history, this first book-length treatment of the subject calls for a new understanding of the priesthood and temple in early Judaism.

Taking on the established view of Chronicles, which uses retribution theology - the view that the author of Chronicles re-worked the texts in Samuel-Kings to demonstrate that Yahweh rewards the good and punishes the wicked - Troy Cudworth argues that this cause-effect relationship is maintained primarily through the treatment of the themes of war and temple-faithfulness. Cudworth identifies a division of kings into categories, with the immediate exception of David, who belongs in his own category as he pioneered the two most foundational elements of the temple cult. For this reason, he also won many battles to secure Israel's place in the land. The next two groups of kings can be dichotomised in the following way: those who show faithfulness to the temple cult and its practices, and those who neglect it. Based on their attitude to the temple, the Chronicler illustrates how the kings either prosper in the land through military victory or suffer attack. Although many kings begin as faithful in supporting orthodox temple practices, and thus prosper on the battlefield, none of these kings are consistent and persevere in their faithfulness and so their success either stops immediately, or they suffer attack. Conversely, other kings are illustrated who, despite committing some of the worst sins in Israel's history, repent immediately after their swift punishment. Across all of these cases, it is shown how temple faithfulness always ultimately guarantees peace and security for Israel.

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

What was the extent and nature of Jewish proselytizing activity amongst non-Jews in Palestine and the Greco-Roman diaspora leading up to and during the beginnings of the Christian era? Was there a clear missional direction? How did Second-Temple Judaism recruit converts and gain sympathizers? This book strives to address these questions, representing an update of the discussion while also breaking new ground. A "source book" of key texts is provided at the end.

The land of temples is South India, the southern tip of the Indian subcontinent. It's been called the last surviving classical civilization, a land where there is room for temples large and small and time for rituals passed down for millennia. In four brief essays and two dozen evocative black-and-white photographs scholar and devotee Michael Steinberg takes readers into the inner sanctuaries of ancient temples and out again into the teeming streets of contemporary Chennai. A big book in a little package, his deeply personal story also sheds light on the enduring importance of a way of life that has its roots in the dawn of civilization itself.

An introduction to the archaeology and history of ancient Palestine, from the destruction of Solomon's temple to the Muslim conquest.