From Gods to God: The Dynamics of Iron Age Cosmologies (Forschungen Zum Alten Testament)

The birth of the West stems from the rejection of tradition. All our evidence for this influence comes from the Axial period, 800-400 BCE. Baruch Halpern explores the impact of changing cosmologies and social relations on cultural change in that era, especially from Mesopotamia to Israel and Greece, but extending across the Mediterranean, not least to Egypt and Italy. In this volume he shows how an explosion of international commerce and exchange, which can be understood as a Renaissance, led to the redefinition of selfhood in various cultures and to Reformation. The process inevitably precipitated an Enlightenment. This has happened over and over in human history and in academic or cultural fields. It is the basis of modernization, or Westernization, wherever it occurs, and whatever form it takes. Cover Dedication Preface Contents Abbreviations Introduction Part I: The Rejection of Tradition Chapter 1. “Brisker Pipes than Poetry”: The Development of Israelite Monotheism Introduction I II III IV Chapter 2. The Baal (and the Asherah) in Seventh-Century Judah: Yhwh’s Retainers Retired Chapter 3. Yhwh the Revolutionary: Reflections on the Rhetoric of Redistribution in the Social Context of Dawning Monotheism Contemporary Understandings of the Theology of the Hebrew Bible: Problems and Prospects Revolutionary Religious Rhetoric and the Powerful Elite Prophetic Critique as a Social-Control Mechanism Yhwh’s Identity in Essentialist and Functional Views The Name Yhwh and History Chapter 4. The False Torah of Jeremiah 8 in the Context of Seventh Century BCE Pseudepigraphy: The First Documented Rejection of Tradition Part II: Cultural Transformations and Composition Chapter 5. The Resourceful Israelite Historian: The Song of Deborah and Israelite Historiography I. Some Issues and Implications II. The Problem and the Text III. Treatments of the Problem IV. Conclusions, Implications Chapter 6. Doctrine by Misadventure: Between the Israelite Source and the Biblical Historian I II III IV Chapter 7. Sacred History and Ideology: Chronicles’ Thematic Structure: Indications of an Earlier Source Introduction I II III IV Chapter 8. The Editions of Kings in the 7th-6th Centuries BCE Introduction I II.i II.ii II.iii II.iv II.v III IV.i IV.ii IV.iii V.i V.ii V.iii VI.i VI.ii VI.iii VI.iv VI.v VII.i VII.ii VIII IX Chapter 9. Why Manasseh is Blamed for the Babylonian Exile: The Evolution of a Biblical Tradition I. The Question II. The Strategy of Explanation in Chronicles A. Chronicles on the Exile B. Collective Sin (36:14) C. Profaning the Temple (36:14) D. Prophetic Cautions (36:15) E. Prophecy as a Mark of Divine Sympathy and its Mockery (36:15–16) F. Divine Wrath (36:16) III. Kings and the Account of Josiah IV. Josiah’s Death and the Blaming of Manasseh A. Huldah’s Oracle (2 Kgs 22:15–20; 2 Chr 34:24–8) B. Dating Huldah’s Oracle C. Fulfilling Huldah’s Oracle V. The Exilic strategy of Explanation in Kings VI. Implications for the Stages of Composition Part III: The State’s Rejection of Religion: Revolution and Reformation Chapter 10. Jerusalem and the Lineages in the 7th Century BCE: Kinship and the Rise of Individual Moral Liability I. Collective or Individual Reward? II. Assyria in Judah A. From Field Force to Hedgehog Defense B. Hezekiah and Friends C. At Home with Hezekiah III. Sennacherib’s Reforms A. Sennacherib at Large B. Sennacherib’s Judah IV. The Countryside Reformed A. The Depopulation of Judah B. The Traditional Organization of the Countryside C. Community in the Clan Sector V. The Aftermath VI. The Seventh Century: Renaissance and Reformation A. The Road to Josiah B. Individuation and Literalism Part IV: The Dynamics of Cosmological Thought in Iron Age Societies Chapter 11. The Assyrian Astronomy of Genesis 1 and the Birth of Milesian Philosophy I. Israelite Astronomy II. The Heavens of Genesis 1 III. The Milesian Sky IV. Wheels within Wheels V. The World Turned Upside-down Chapter 12. Late Israelite Astronomies and the Early Greeks I. Israel’s Priestly Astronomies and Their Milesian Counterparts II. Astronomy in Jeremiah and Xenophanes III. The State Assault on the Ancestors IV. The Mechanisms of the Transfer Appendix: Excerpts from Churchill, The River War (1899, 2 vols.) Bibliography Source Index Hebrew Bible New Testament Quran Author Index Selected Subjects Index HauptbeschreibungThe birth of the West stems from the rejection of tradition. All our evidence for this influence comes from the Axial period, 800-400 BCE. Baruch Halpern explores the impact of changing cosmologies and social relations on cultural change in that era, especially from Mesopotamia to Israel and Greece, but extending across the Mediterranean, not least to Egypt and Italy. In this volume he shows how an explosion of international commerce and exchange, which can be understood as a Renaissance, led to the redefinition of selfhood in various cultures and to Reformation. The process i Baruch Halpern ; Edited By Matthew J. Adams Includes Bibliographical References (p. [481[-508).