Israelite Religions

S. Hess Richard

Description

Archaeological excavation in the Holy Land has exploded with the resurgence of interest in the historical roots of the biblical Israelites. Israelite Religions offers Bible students and interested lay leaders a survey of the major issues and approaches that constitute the study of ancient Israelite religion. Unique among other books on the subject, Israelite Religions takes the Bible seriously as a historical source, balancing the biblical material with relevant evidence from archaeological finds.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Biblical archaeology
• Judaism
• History of religions

Informations

• Publié par: Baker Publishing Group
• Date de parution: 15 octobre 2007
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781441201126
• Langue: English

Extrait

Israelite Religions
Israelite Religions

An Archaeological and Biblical Survey

Richard S. Hess
2007 by Richard S. Hess
Published by Baker Academic a division of Baker Publishing Group P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287 www.bakeracademic.com
and Apollos (an imprint of Inter-Varsity Press) Norton Street Nottingham NG7 3HR, England email: ivp ivpbooks.com website: www.ivpbooks.com
Printed in the United States of America
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means-for example, electronic, photocopy, recording-without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hess, Richard S. Israelite religions : an archaeological and biblical survey / Richard S. Hess. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 10: 0-8010-2717-9 (cloth) ISBN 978-0-8010-2717-8 (cloth) 1. Judaism-History-To 70 A.D. 2. Jews-History-To 70 A.D. 3. Bible. O.T.- Theology. 4. Bible. O.T.-Criticism, interpretation, etc. 5. Bible. O.T.-Antiquities. I. Title. BM165.H47 2007 296.0901-dc22
2007012611
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. UK ISBN 978-1-84474-190-8
Scripture quotations are from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION . NIV . Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.
Contents
List of Figures
Preface
1 Introduction
2 Approaches to the Study of Religion
3 Previous Study of Israelite Religion
4 Pre-Israelite West Semitic Religion: Syria and Egypt
5 Pre-Israelite West Semitic Religion: Palestine and Jordan
6 Narrative and Legal Strands of the Pentateuch
7 Priestly and Cultic Strands of the Pentateuch
8 Early Israel and the United Monarchy
9 Written Sources for the Divided Monarchy
10 Archaeological Sources for the Divided Monarchy
11 Exilic and Postexilic Religion
12 Conclusions
Reference List
Figures
Fig. 1. Map of Southern Canaan and neighbors
Fig. 2. Part of Hattusas, capital of the Hittite empire
Fig. 3. Map of Mesopotamia
Fig. 4. Amarna Tablet
Fig. 5. Late Bronze Age Hazor acropolis defenses
Fig. 6. Third-millennium BC Early Bronze Age altar at Megiddo
Fig. 7. Late Bronze Age Beth Shan behind Roman Scythopolis
Fig. 8. Late Bronze Age Shechem fortress temple
Fig. 9. Standing stones at Gezer
Fig. 10. Lachish goddess plaque
Fig. 11. Megiddo ivory with image of chariot and prince on throne
Fig. 12. Temple of Amon-Re at Karnak
Fig. 13. Tel Ashkelon
Fig. 14. Middle Bronze Age silver and bronze calf from Ashkelon
Fig. 15. Jebel Musa, possible site of Mount Sinai
Fig. 16. Tel Bethsaida
Fig. 17. Standing stones from Uvda Valley
Fig. 18. Structures marking burials in the Sinai peninsula
Fig. 19. Negev open sanctuary
Fig. 20. Negev rock cut crenelations
Fig. 21. Hathor Temple
Fig. 22. Timna Valley
Fig. 23. Mount Ebal site
Fig. 24. Mount Ebal ramp and altar
Fig. 25. Site of Khirbet Seilun, identified with biblical Shiloh
Fig. 26. Palestinian highlands
Fig. 27. Bull from Early Iron Age site east of Dothan
Fig. 28. Map of tenth-century BC cultic sites
Fig. 29. Dan high place
Fig. 30. The Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III, possibly portraying Jehu in obeisance to Shalmaneser
Fig. 31. Ein Gedi
Fig. 32. Ketef Hinnom silver strip
Fig. 33. Lachish gate area where ostraca were found
Fig. 34. Judean captives from Sennacherib s relief of the capture of Lachish
Fig. 35. Beersheba reconstructed horned altar
Fig. 36. from the outer court at Dan
Fig. 37. Dan high place
Fig. 38. Arad cult center
Fig. 39. Pillar-based Judean female figurines
Fig. 40. The Jezebel seal
Fig. 41. Ivory sphinx
Fig. 42. Sphinx at pyramids in Egypt
Fig. 43. Kuntillet drawings
Fig. 44. Taanach cult stand
Preface
The background to this study began in research that I had undertaken in the late 1980s after the appearance of studies concerning newly discovered Israelite inscriptions. Further research revealed a significant growth in the results of archaeological sites excavated and the study of various ancient Near Eastern documents, and a massive increase in the publications in the field of ancient Israelite religion. The former especially focused on newly published documents from Mari, Ugarit, and Emar. The results of all this material appeared to position the study of ancient Israelite religion as one of the most interesting and exciting areas in the study of the Hebrew Bible and the world in which Israel lived.
While I have learned much from my reading and research in this field, I sensed the need for a basic introduction that could provide a survey of methods of research, current syntheses and their relation to both the biblical text and other archaeological and textual evidence, and a critical review of the interpretation of what the religious world of ancient Israel was about. The present volume seeks to provide what may be an interim assessment of this changing and developing field. The choice of materials surveyed and the interpretations and scholars reviewed represents a fraction of the whole discipline. Nevertheless, some selectivity was necessary if the field was to be adequately covered. If the work succeeds at all it will be to provide a stimulus to the reader for further research in one or more aspects of this vast and growing field. It may also assist in making some sense out of the many questions and issues that surround the relationship between archaeological, biblical, and extrabiblical textual evidence. In the end the work should raise more questions than it answers and it is hoped that these questions will open new areas of research and understanding.
It remains to express my gratitude to the many who have made this study possible. I am grateful to Denver Seminary for sabbatical leave during 2004 that enabled me to undertake important research for this work. I thank Dr. Keith Wells, the seminary s librarian, and all the staff who kindly helped me with my every request and assisted my study. I thank my colleague, Dr. M. Daniel Carroll R., who looked over various parts of the manuscript and made helpful comments. I am grateful to the Institute of Biblical Research for the invitation to present the plenary lecture on November 21, 2003, in Atlanta, Iron Age Religion in Israel and Its Neighbors: Any Distinctives in the Extrabiblical Evidence? The interaction and feedback after that lecture provided me with important insights and motivation to pursue the research. In particular, Dr. Theodore Lewis, in his response to the lecture and in his later and more detailed interaction with an early draft of the manuscript, provided invaluable criticisms and perspectives that enabled me to improve this work in ways I would not otherwise have considered. I also thank Dr. Ziony Zevit for his willingness to read through the work and provide me with helpful comments. Further, thanks are due to Dr. Philip Johnston for his careful reading of the manuscript and for his detailed critique. I am grateful as well to Baker Academic for their willingness to publish this work and for the patience of Jim Kinney, Brian Bolger, and others as I attempted to complete it. All statements in this book remain my own responsibility and that of no one else.
I dedicate this work to my daughter, Fiona Jean Hess, whose graduation from college and beginning of seminary studies I celebrated during the years of research on the present work.
1 Introduction
Preliminary Perspectives
Definitions
Religion
Israelite
Outline of This Book
Summary
Preliminary Perspectives
The purpose of this work is to survey the major elements of the study of ancient Israelite religion and the methods that have been used to study them. Interest in Israelite religion has recently enjoyed a renaissance. Why have so many books and articles been written on the subject with no indication of a reduction in their number in coming years? Several factors have contributed to this development: renewed interest in the areas of the history of the study of Old Testament theology; the explosion in the archaeological excavation of what is often called the Holy Land ; and the broader philosophical and cultural trends of our era, especially postmodernism.
I begin with the pedigree of the study of Israelite religion vis- -vis the study of the Old Testament and especially Old Testament theology. Dissatisfaction with traditional approaches to Old Testament theology can be traced to the end of a major movement in this field-the Biblical Theology Movement-in the mid-twentieth century. This dissatisfaction, along with a gradual shift away from the pursuit of a single unifying theological principle, led to the identification of a plurality of theologies, whose contradictory approaches and interpretations are nevertheless grouped together within the collection of literature known as the Hebrew Bible. 1 This shift in thought led scholars to posit a radical disjunction between a late, idealized final edition of the Old Testament and its underlying multiplicity of parties and contentious views of worship and religious beliefs. From such a milieu, Israelite religion strengthened itself as a discipline independent of Old Testament theology. Those who studied it sought a path between two dangerous extremes: the Scylla of a flattened out Old Testament with no acknowledgment of its multiple voices and the Charybdis of an agnosticism that could not know anything about the history of early Israel and its religion. 2
Thus Israelite religion as a modern discipline turned away from a fundamentally literary task aimed at distilling the principle teachings of the Old Testament for faith, life, and-especially in Christian contexts-a connection with the New Testament a