Yahweh's Coming of Age

Yahweh's Coming of Age
Title Yahweh's Coming of Age PDF eBook
Author Jason Bembry
Publisher Penn State Press
Pages 176
Release 2011-07-21
Genre History
ISBN 1575066165

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In the Judeo-Christian tradition, the deity Yahweh is often portrayed as an old man. One of the epithets used of Yahweh in the Hebrew Bible, the Ancient of Days, is a source for this depiction of God as elderly. However, when we look closely at the early traditions of biblical Israel, we see a different picture: God is relatively youthful, a warrior who defends his people. This book is an examination of the question How did God become old? To answer this question, Bembry examines the way that aging and elderly human beings are portrayed in the Hebrew Bible. Then he makes a similar foray into the texts written in Ugaritic (a language quite close to ancient Hebrew), which provide a window into the ancient culture just north of Israel during the Late Bronze Age. He finds that Israel’s God shared attributes with the Ugaritic deities Baal and El. One prominent aspect of the similar attributes was that Yahweh’s depiction as a youthful warrior paralleled the way Baal was portrayed. The transformation from young deity to Ancient of Days took place at the intersection of two trajectories in the traditions of Israel. One trajectory is reflected in the way that apocalyptic traditions found in the book of Daniel recast the old Canaanite mythic imagery seen in the Ugaritic and early biblical texts. This trajectory allows Yahweh to take on qualities, such as old age, that were not associated with him during most of Israel’s history but were associated with El in the Canaanite traditions. The second trajectory, a depiction of Israel’s God as elderly, is connected with the development of the idea of Yahweh as father. The more comfortable the biblical tradents became with portraying Yahweh as a father—a metaphor that was not embraced in the early traditions—the easier it became for the people of Israel to think of Yahweh as occupying a stage of the human life cycle. These two trajectories came together in the 2nd century B.C.E., the chronological backdrop for Daniel 7, and found expression in a new epithet for Yahweh: Ancient of Days.

131 Christians Everyone Should Know

131 Christians Everyone Should Know
Title 131 Christians Everyone Should Know PDF eBook
Author Christian History Magazine Editorial Staff
Publisher B&H Publishing Group
Pages 386
Release 2010-10-01
Genre Biography & Autobiography
ISBN 1433672553

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This book offers a succinct yet thorough introduction to 131 of the most intriguing, courageous, inspiring Christians who ever lived. It tells how they lived, what they believed, and how their faith affected the course of world history. Includes a timeline with a historical context for each individual, key quotes from or about each personality, and more than 60 photos.

Monotheism and Yahweh's Appropriation of Baal

Monotheism and Yahweh's Appropriation of Baal
Title Monotheism and Yahweh's Appropriation of Baal PDF eBook
Author James S. Anderson
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing
Pages 160
Release 2015-08-27
Genre Religion
ISBN 0567663965

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Biblical scholarship today is divided between two mutually exclusive concepts of the emergence of monotheism: an early-monotheistic Yahwism paradigm and a native-pantheon paradigm. This study identifies five main stages on Israel's journey towards monotheism. Rather than deciding whether Yahweh was originally a god of the Baal-type or of the El-type, this work shuns origins and focuses instead on the first period for which there are abundant sources, the Omride era. Non-biblical sources depict a significantly different situation from the Baalism the Elijah cycle ascribes to King Achab. The novelty of the present study is to take this paradox seriously and identify the Omride dynasty as the first stage in the rise of Yahweh as the main god of Israel. Why Jerusalem later painted the Omrides as anti-Yahweh idolaters is then explained as the need to distance itself from the near-by sanctuary of Bethel by assuming the Omride heritage without admitting its northern Israelite origins. The contribution of the Priestly document and of Deutero-Isaiah during the Persian era comprise the next phase, before the strict Yahwism achieved in Daniel 7 completes the emergence of biblical Yahwism as a truly monotheistic religion.

The Beauty of the Lord

The Beauty of the Lord
Title The Beauty of the Lord PDF eBook
Author Jonathan King
Publisher Lexham Press
Pages 452
Release 2018-05-30
Genre Religion
ISBN 1683590597

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Why is God's beauty often absent from our theology? Rarely do theologians take up the theme of God's beauty—even more rarely do they consider how God's beauty should shape the task of theology itself. But the psalmist says that the heart of the believer's desire is to behold the beauty of the Lord. In The Beauty of the Lord, Jonathan King restores aesthetics as not merely a valid lens for theological reflection, but an essential one. Jesus, our incarnate Redeemer, displays the Triune God's beauty in his actions and person, from creation to final consummation. How can and should theology better reflect this unveiled beauty? The Beauty of the Lord is a renewal of a truly aesthetic theology and a properly theological aesthetics.

Theological Dictionary of the New Testament

Theological Dictionary of the New Testament
Title Theological Dictionary of the New Testament PDF eBook
Author Geoffrey William Bromiley
Publisher Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
Pages 1050
Release 1964
Genre Religion
ISBN 9780802822475

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One of the most widely respected theological dictionaries put into one-volume, abridged form. Focusing on the theological meaning of each word, the abridgment contains English keywords for each entry, tables of English and Greek keywords, and a listing of the relevant volume and page numbers from the unabridged work at the end of each article or section.

Life and Death

Life and Death
Title Life and Death PDF eBook
Author Francesca Stavrakopoulou
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing
Pages 270
Release 2021-01-28
Genre Religion
ISBN 0567699315

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Life and Death: Social Perspectives on Biblical Bodies explores some of the social, material, and ideological dynamics shaping life and death in both the Hebrew Bible and ancient Israel and Judah. Analysing topics ranging from the bodily realities of gestation, subsistence, and death, and embodied performances of gender, power, and status, to the imagined realities of post-mortem and divine existence, the essays in this volume offer exciting new trajectories in our understanding of the ways in which embodiment played out in the societies in which the texts of the Hebrew Bible emerged.

Promises of God

Promises of God
Title Promises of God PDF eBook
Author Edwin C. Kingsbury
Publisher Tate Publishing
Pages 371
Release 2009-09
Genre Covenants
ISBN 1607993031

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Long ago, when Israel had become aware of her unique history, she began to collect and recount the saving acts of her God. She concluded that God had chosen her and brought her from the lowest level of society through slavery into the Promised Land. In the glorious days of Solomon, she had the leisure to contemplate and to write down what her God had done for her. She testified that her God was the God of promises who was faithful to his covenants. The Promises of God beautifully and systematically records the responses from the leaders of this community of faith that were given to God's people. Though their answers were far from unanimous, they gave a guide to the generations of faithful people who have sought to live in covenant with their God in difficult times. Due to the perilous times in which we live, The Promises of God offers comfort as we consider the faithfulness of our great and holy God.