God in Translation

Deities in Cross-Cultural Discourse in the Biblical World

By: Mark S. Smith

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Paperback | 28 June 2010

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The Hebrew Bible has long been understood as condemning foreign deities. While many biblical texts do condemn other deities, many other passages show how early Israelites sometimes accepted the reality of deities worshiped by other peoples. Looking closely both at relevant biblical texts and at their cultural contexts, Mark S. Smith demonstrates that the biblical attitude toward other deities is not uniformly negative, as is commonly supposed. He traces the historical development of Israel's "one-god worldview," linking it to the rise of the surrounding Mesopotamian empires.

Smith's study also produces evidence undermining a common modern assumption among historians of religion that polytheism is tolerant while monotheism is prone to intolerance and violence. Drawing both on ancient sources and on modern, theoretical approaches, Smith's God in Translation masterfully reveals the complexity of attitudes in ancient Israel toward foreign deities and makes a case for an ecumenism based on respect for local traditions and not based on a western notion of universal religion.

Industry Reviews

Robert R. Wilson -- Yale University "A magisterial treatment of the development of Israelite monotheism throughout the entire biblical period. . . . The starting point for much new research." Karel van der Toorn -- University of Amsterdam "This is an amazing book. Mark Smith takes the reader inside the intellectual universe of ancient Israel and its neighbors in a search for the possibilities of cultural translation. Learned, thoroughly researched, and written in clear and sober prose, this study defines a new level in our understanding of ancient Near Eastern theological thought." Bibliotheca Orientalis "This important study deserves a wide public and more than just the attention of the specialists in this field."

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You Can Find This Book In

Non-Fiction Reference, Information & Interdisciplinary Subjects Interdisciplinary Studies Communication Studies Religion & Beliefs Christianity Biblical Studies & Exegesis Aspects of Religion for Non-Christians Theology

Preface	p. IX
Acknowledgements	p. XI
Abbreviations and Sigla	p. XIII
A Note on Transliteration and Citation	p. XIX
Timeline: Periods, Events and Writings	p. XXI
Introduction: The Subject of Translatability of Deities	p. 1
The Rationale for this Study	p. 1
The Plan of this Book	p. 15
A Word about Academic Location	p. 23
Empires and Their Deities: Translatability in the Late Bronze Age	p. 37
Introduction to Late Bronze Age Translatability	p. 37
Treaties and Letters	p. 51
Concepts of Divine Translatability: Family, Shared Resources, Oneness	p. 76
Myths, Ritual and Prayer	p. 21
Translatability and National Gods in Ancient Israel	p. 91
Claims for the Absence of Biblical Translatability	p. 91
Evidence of Translatability in the Hebrew Bible	p. 99
Translatability and National Gods	p. 119
The Rejection of Translatability in Israel and the Impact of Mesopotamian Empires on Divinity	p. 131
Rejecting Translatability in Ancient Israel	p. 131
ôOne-Godö Worldviews in Mesopotamia and Israel and Their Lack of Translatability	p. 149
Ugarit and Israel: Case Studies of Local Responses to Empires	p. 180
ôProtecting Godö Against Translatability: Biblical Censorship in Post-Exilic Israel	p. 187
Censorship Now and Then	p. 187
Censorship in and for Israel: The Cases of Deuteronomy 32:8-9 and Genesis 14:22	p. 193
The Cultural Context of Biblical Censorship in the Post-Exilic Period	p. 216
ôThe Beautiful Essence of All the Godsö: Translatability in the Greco-Roman World	p. 243
Jan Assmann on Translatability in the Greco-Roman Period	p. 243
Genres of Greco-Roman Translatability	p. 247
The Cultural Contours of Greco-Roman Translatability	p. 260
The Biblical God in the World: Jewish and Christian Translatability and Its Limits	p. 275
Translations of God from Jewish to Non-Jewish Sources	p. 275
Jewish Horizontal Translatability	p. 300
The Christian Message: Lost in Translation?	p. 306
Epilogue: Scholars of God, Then and Now	p. 323
Jan Assmann: Contribution and Critique	p. 323
Then and Now: Scholarship of God	p. 328
Indexes
Sources	p. 341
Authors	p. 360
Subjects	p. 370
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

God in Translation

Deities in Cross-Cultural Discourse in the Biblical World

At a Glance

Paperback

Industry Reviews

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