The Beneficent Sky God: Cultural History in the Qur’an

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
William F. McCants
Keyword(s):  
Cultural History ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Near East ◽  
Divine Providence ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Prime Mover ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
Arts And Sciences

This chapter considers the Qur'an's interpretation of the origins of civilization. When the Arabs conquered the Near East, they shared with their subjects (mainly Jews and Christians) the notion that civilization had arisen as a consequence of Adam's fall. But in contrast to the Hebrew Bible, the Qur'an portrays the rise of civilization positively and makes God its prime mover, much like the gods of ancient Near Eastern myths. There are at least two reasons for this difference. First, Muhammad draws on noncanonical biblical scripture and storytelling that link God, angels, and chosen human interlocutors to the development of beneficial arts and sciences. Second, Muhammad draws on some version of these texts (perhaps oral) to prove his argument that God is the source of all civilization, an argument influenced by late-antique thought on divine providence. He makes this argument to justify either proselytizing among or conquest of non-Muslims, who have forgotten the source of civilization and thus deserve to lose it.

scholarly journals Praise by animals in the Hebrew Bible

2019 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 500-513
Author(s):  
Peter Joshua Atkins
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Near East ◽  
Ancient Near East ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
Biblical Texts

Among ancient Near Eastern societies was a widespread and particularly intriguing belief that animals were able to worship and praise deities. This study shows the Hebrew Bible evidences the idea that animals were capable of praising God too and proceeds to observe and document the presence of numerous examples of this in specific biblical texts. Through understanding the place of animals in the Hebrew Bible, and their perceived activity in the ancient Near East, this study suggests animals are distinct agents of praise in their own right in the biblical texts.

Concatenation in Ancient Near East Literature, Hebrew Scripture and Rabbinic Literature

2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 46-92
Author(s):  
Shamir Yona ◽  
Ariel Ram Pasternak
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Near East ◽  
Ancient Near East ◽  
Rabbinic Literature ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
Rhetorical Device ◽  
Ben Sira ◽  
Early Use ◽  
Hebrew Scripture

Abstract This paper follows the development of concatenation from its early use in Ancient Near Eastern literature through its use in the Hebrew Bible, in Hebrew Ben-Sira, and ultimately in Rabbinic literature. We demonstrate that the Rabbis adopted this rhetorical pattern for stylistic purposes and also used it as an editing device. The latter use of the rhetorical device in question is only rarely attested in the Hebrew Bible.

The Good, the God, and the Ugly: The Role of the Beloved Monster in the Ancient Near East and the Hebrew Bible

2020 ◽  
Vol 74 (2) ◽  
pp. 132-145
Author(s):  
Ryan S. Higgins
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Crucial Role ◽  
Near East ◽  
Speculative Fiction ◽  
Ancient Near East ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
Contemporary Speculative Fiction

Ancient Near Eastern texts teem with horrifying and grotesque beings that pose some significant threat to the cosmos, humanity, and its institutions. Adopting Noël Carroll’s definition, such beings are monsters: interstitial not only physiologically and ontologically, but also cosmically and morally. This essay takes a comparative and literary approach to beloved monsters in Ugaritic, Mesopotamian, and Hebrew Bible texts. It suggests that in Ugarit and Mesopotamia, such monsters play a crucial role in advancing the goals of antipathic heroes while maintaining the integrity of sympathetic deities. It then considers the beloved monster in the Hebrew Bible and its interpretations. Finally, the essay makes note of the phenomenon’s transformation in contemporary speculative fiction. The essay argues that the beloved monster in Ugarit and Mesopotamia keeps together a fragmented cosmos, while in the Hebrew Bible it refracts through the facets in a prismatic God.

Gifts of the Gods: The Origins of Civilization in Ancient Near Eastern and Greek Mythology

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
William F. McCants
Keyword(s):  
Near East ◽  
Greek Mythology ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
Arts And Sciences ◽  
The Arts ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Ex Nihilo

In order to see how the Greek, Roman, and Arab conquests of the Near East shaped the conqueror's and conquered's understanding of the origins of civilization, this chapter surveys the region's ancient mythologies before the conquests: Mesopotamian, Iranian, Egyptian, Greek, and Hebrew (the surviving Hurrian, Hittite, and Canaanite texts do not treat the subject). In Mesopotamian, Iranian, and Egyptian myths, gods create civilization ex nihilo and gave it to humans, sometimes through special human or semihuman interlocutors. The arts and sciences they create are almost always beneficial, and their point of origin is usually associated with cities, not with peoples. The genres of texts surveyed are also heterogeneous because of the ways that culture myths from the different ancient societies survived.

Reception History of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dominik Markl
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Reception History ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Love Poetry ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
History Of ◽  
Historical Developments

The Hebrew Bible/Old Testament (HB/OT) is like a prism through which ancient Near Eastern traditions were transformed and transmitted to Jewish and Christian cultures. Through the Jewish diaspora and the Christian missions, it became a nomadic text that spread to all continents. It was received and transformed in diverse genres of literature, music, art, theatre, law, and politics. Interest in processes of reception has intensified since World War I, but reception history became a major field within biblical studies only at the turn of the millennium. Analyzing the history of reception of the HB/OT poses a variety of challenges: what hermeneutical expectations, attitudes, interests, and methods were applied to its texts? How were they involved in diverse fields of culture, and how did different modes of reception influence each other? What historical developments occasioned changes in interpretation? In analyzing textual reception, three basic aspects should be considered: the texts with their respective genres and themes, the hermeneutics applied to them, and the social contexts in which the reception takes place. Each of these aspects is characterized by great variation: biblical genres are as diverse as curse and love poetry, law and lament; hermeneutical approaches involve extremely different interests and results in, for example, allegorical, kabballistic and historical critical interpretation; social contexts of reception include family education, monastic lectio divina, public reading and preaching, and academic teaching. Investigating this history of reception means looking at cultural history through the lens of the HB/OT. Rather than defining itself as a field of research separate from interpretation, reception history should be seen as a constituent of the hermeneutical endeavor.

Blessings and Curses in Deuteronomy

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Quick
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Near East ◽  
Religious Life ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Ancient Near East ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
The Law ◽  
And Function ◽  
Ancient Texts

The law code of the book of Deuteronomy is capped with a series of blessings and curses that either promise reward or threaten harm upon the individuals subject to the Deuteronomic laws. While this method of divine encouragement to keep the commandments of God might seem surprising from a theological point of view, blessings and curses were an integral part of the legal, political, and religious life of the ancient Near East, found in a variety of ancient texts, including the Hebrew Bible, Neo-Assyrian treaties, and Northwest Semitic inscriptions. Placing the biblical blessings and curses within the larger context of this ancient Near Eastern material provides new insights into the background and function of the blessings and curses in the book of Deuteronomy, and in the Hebrew Bible more generally.

scholarly journals Bitenosh’s Orgasm, Galen’s Two Seeds and Conception Theory in the Hebrew Bible

2021 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 38-63
Author(s):  
Laura Quick
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Near East ◽  
Sexual Pleasure ◽  
Ancient Near East ◽  
Rhetorical Strategy ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
Roman World ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Medical Issues ◽  
Genesis Apocryphon

Abstract In the Genesis Apocryphon, Lamech worries that his son is illegitimate and accordingly confronts his wife about her fidelity. Bitenosh answers these accusations with a surprising response: she asks her husband to recall the sexual pleasure that she experienced during their intercourse. Scholars have clarified this rhetorical strategy by connecting the episode to Greco-Roman theories of embryogenesis, in which a woman’s pleasure during intercourse was taken to indicate conception. While this provides a convincing explanation for Bitenosh’s argumentation, in this essay I argue that rather than deriving these ideas from the Greco-Roman world, the conception theory which informed the Genesis Apocryphon is in fact consistent with notions that can already be found in the Hebrew Bible and the wider ancient Near East. By exploring the concept of conception in biblical and ancient Near Eastern texts, I uncover a belief in the necessity for female pleasure during intercourse as well as the existence of female “seed.” These ancient authors were able to develop and promote significant reflections upon medical issues such as conception, and this is recalled in Bitenosh’s speech. This essay therefore has significant implications for understanding concepts of sex and conception in the Genesis Apocryphon, as well as in the Hebrew Bible and the wider ancient Near East more generally.

On Agricultural Imagery in Biblical Descriptions of Catastrophes

2012 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 2-14
Author(s):  
Nili Samet
Keyword(s):  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Mass Killing ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
Biblical Literature ◽  
Ancient Israel

This article examines the use of agricultural imagery in biblical literature to embody the destructive force of war and other mass catastrophes. Activities such as vintage, harvest, threshing, and wine-pressing serve as metaphors for the actions of slaughtering, demolition and mass killing. The paper discusses the Ancient Near Eastern origins of the imagery under discussion, and presents the relevant examples from the Hebrew Bible, tracing the development of this absorbing metaphor, and analyzing the different meanings attached to it in different contexts. It shows that the use of destructive agricultural imagery first emerges in ancient Israel as an instance of popular phraseology. In turn, the imagery is employed as a common prophetic motif. The prophetic books examined demonstrate how each prophet appropriates earlier uses of the imagery in prophetic discourse and adapts the agricultural metaphors to suit specific rhetorical needs.

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