Prophecy was a widespread phenomenon, not only in ancient Israel but in the ancient Near East as a whole. This is the first book to gather the available ancient Near Eastern, extrabiblical sources containing prophetic words or references to prophetic activities. Among the 140 texts included in this volume are oracles of prophets, personal letters, formal inscriptions, and administrative documents from ancient Mesopotamia and Levant from the second and first millennia BCE. Most of the texts come from Mari (eighteenth century BCE) and Assyria (seventh century BCE). In addition, the volume provides new translations of the relevant section of the Egyptian Report of Wenamon, by Robert K. Ritner, and of various texts from Syria-Palestine containing allusions to prophets and prophetic activities, by C. L. Seow. By collecting and presenting evidence of the activities of prophets and the phenomenon of prophecy from all over the ancient Near East, the volume illumines the cultural background of biblical prophecy and its parallels. It provides scholars of the history, religions, and cultural traditions of the ancient Near East with important information about different types and forms of transmission of divine words, and makes these valuable primary source materials accessible to students and general readers in contemporary English along with transcriptions of the original languages, indexes, and an extensive bibliography.
Paperback edition is available from the Society of Biblical Literature (www.sbl-site.org)
Rezensionen / Stimmen
'Altogether, this is a very useful and readable volume that will well serve its intended audience of general readers as well as specialists in biblical studies, ancient Near Eastern studies, and other areas. Because of its extensive and accessible references to earlier studies, it will likely become the standard reference work for those interested in these
texts.'
Marvin Sweeney, Review of Biblical Literature, 2005.
'Cet ouvrage est, a n'en pas douter, un precieux outil d'etude tant pour l'orientaliste que pour le bibliste ou le specialiste de l'etude du phenomene religieux, dans la bibliotheque desquels il trouvera une place de choix.'
Jean-Daniel Macchi, Review of Biblical Literature, 2004.
Reihe
Sprache
Verlagsort
Zielgruppe
Für höhere Schule und Studium
Für Beruf und Forschung
Produkt-Hinweis
Gewicht
ISBN-13
978-90-04-12691-6 (9789004126916)
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Schweitzer Klassifikation
Martti Nissinen, Ph.D. (1991), University of Helsinki, is Senior Researcher, Academy of Finland. He teaches Hebrew Bible at the University of Helsinki, publishes and lectures extensively on prophecy in the ancient Near East, and is one of the translators of the New Finnish Bible (1992).