Storymaking Textual Development And Varying Cultic Centralizations

National Book Award Finalist: “This man’s ideas may be the most influential, not to say controversial, of the second half of the twentieth century.”—Columbus Dispatch At the heart of this classic, seminal book is Julian Jaynes's still-controversial thesis that human consciousness did not begin far back in animal evolution but instead is a learned process that came about only three thousand years ago and is still developing. The implications of this revolutionary scientific paradigm extend into virtually every aspect of our psychology, our history and culture, our religion—and indeed our future. “Don’t be put off by the academic title of Julian Jaynes’s The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. Its prose is always lucid and often lyrical…he unfolds his case with the utmost intellectual rigor.”—The New York Times “When Julian Jaynes . . . speculates that until late in the twentieth millennium BC men had no consciousness but were automatically obeying the voices of the gods, we are astounded but compelled to follow this remarkable thesis.”—John Updike, The New Yorker “He is as startling as Freud was in The Interpretation of Dreams, and Jaynes is equally as adept at forcing a new view of known human behavior.”—American Journal of Psychiatry

Benjamin is portrayed in Chronicles differently from how he is portrayed in the Deuteronomic History. In the latter, Benjamin's relation to Judah is shown as varied and complex, incorporating both highs and lows. The Chronicler, by contrast, smooths over these difficulties by emphasizing the historically close relationship between the two tribes. Benjamin D. Giffone sees in this evidence that the Judah-Benjamin relationship reflects the socio-political situation of late Persian Yehud, in which the relatively poor Jerusalem cult struggled to maintain material support from landed nobility in the region. Material evidence shows that the historically Benjaminite regions prospered during the Neo-Babylonian and early Persian periods. The Jerusalem cult competed with cultic locations known for their alliances with either Benjamin or Joseph for the support of wealthier landowners. It is within the context of this struggle for support that the Chronicler rewrote Israel's narrative - partly to garner Benjaminite support. Giffone synthesizes observations that are literary and historical to reveal a literary phenomenon - the differing portraits of Benjamin - and situate this within the historical context of Persian Yehud. In so doing, Giffone offers a new understanding of Yehud during this period, and elaborates an important motif in these two sections of the Hebrew Bible.

Genesis calls its readers into a vision of human community unconstrained by the categories that dominate modern thinking about identity. Genesis situates humanity within a network of nurture that encompasses the entire cosmos--only then introducing Israel not as a people, but as a promise. Genesis prioritizes a human identity that originates in the divine word and depends on ongoing relationship with God. Those called into this new mode of belonging must forsake the social definition that had structured their former life, trading it for an alternative that will only gradually take shape. In contrast to the rigidity that typifies modern notions, Genesis depicts identity as fundamentally fluid. Encounter with God leads to a new social self, not a "spiritual" self that operates only within parameters established in the body at birth. In Belonging in Genesis, Amanda Mbuvi highlights the ways narrative and the act of storytelling function to define and create a community. Building on the emphasis on family in Genesis, she focuses on the way family storytelling is a means of holding together the interpretation of the text and the constitution of the reading community. Explicitly engaging the way in which readers regard the biblical text as a point of reference for their own (collective) identities leads to an understanding of Genesis as inviting its readers into a radically transformative vision of their place in the world.

Books on intercultural communication are rarely written with an intercultural readership in mind. In contrast, this multinational team of authors has put together an introduction to communicating across cultures that uses examples and case studies from around the world. The book further covers essential new topics, including international conflict, social networking, migration, and the effects technology and mass media play in the globalization of communication. Written to be accessible for international students too, this text situates communication theory in a truly global perspective. Each chapter brings to life the links between theory and practice and between the global and the local, introducing key theories and their practical applications. Along the way, you will be supported with first-rate learning resources, including: • theory corners with concise, boxed-out digests of key theoretical concepts • case illustrations putting the main points of each chapter into context • learning objectives, discussion questions, key terms and further reading framing each chapter and stimulating further discussion • a companion website containing resources for instructors, including multiple choice questions, presentation slides, exercises and activities, and teaching notes. This book will not merely guide you to success in your studies, but will teach you to become a more critical consumer of information and understand the influence of your own culture on how you view yourself and others.

This handbook proposes to present best practices in managing and leading the 21st century workforce. It offers strategies and tools to cultivate well-being in the present day boundary-less work environment. Research shows that organizations with higher levels of employee engagement routinely out-perform those with lower employee engagement. This handbook provides valuable insights into why employee well-being is such a powerful driver of employee performance and engagement and what organizations can do to enhance workplace well-being and fulfillment. It brings the research on workplace well-being up-to-date while precisely mapping its terrain and extending the scope and boundaries of this field in an inclusive and egalitarian manner.

This book is an analysis of shifts in dominant media forms and their effects on the sensibilities of the culture as a whole. Many of those shifts have profound, and unfortunate, effects on preaching. T. David Gordon has identified a problem, one that affects all preachers (indeed, all public speakers) and needs fixing. Our preaching is just not communicating properly anymore. Fortunately, Gordon not only explains the causes of this failure but also shows us how to make things better. - Publisher.

This book looks at thirteen different legal systems, ranging from Imperial China to modern Amish: how they worked, what problems they faced, how they dealt with them. Some chapters deal with a single legal system, others with topics relevant to several, such as problems with law based on divine revelation or how systems work in which law enforcement is private and decentralized. The book's underlying assumption is that all human societies face the same problems, deal with them in an interesting variety of different ways, are all the work of grown-ups, hence should all be taken seriously. It ends with a chapter on features of past legal systems that a modern system might want to borrow.