Text and Ritual in the Pentateuch: A Systematic and Comparative Approach

Published by Penn State University Press 2021

Text and Ritual in the Pentateuch

A Systematic and Comparative Approach

Edited by: Christophe Nihan and Julia Rhyder

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781646021574

Overview
Contents

About this book

The first five books of the Hebrew Bible contain a significant number of texts describing ritual practices. Yet it is often unclear how these sources would have been understood or used by ancient audiences in the actual performance of cult. This volume explores the processes of ritual textualization (the creation of a written version of a ritual) in ancient Israel by probing the main conceptual and methodological issues that inform the study of this topic in the Pentateuch.

This systematic and comparative study of text and ritual in the first five books of the Hebrew Bible maps the main areas of consensus and disagreement between scholars engaged in articulating new models for understanding the relationship between text and ritual and explores the importance of comparative evidence for the study of pentateuchal rituals. Topics include ritual textualization in ancient Anatolia, Egypt, Greece, and Mesopotamia; the importance of archaeology and materiality for the study of text and ritual in ancient Israel; the relationship between ritual textualization and standardization in the Pentateuch; the reception of pentateuchal ritual texts in Second Temple writings and rabbinic literature; and the relationship between text and ritual in the Dead Sea Scrolls.

In addition to the editors, the contributors to this volume include Dorothea Erbele-Küster, Daniel K. Falk, Yitzhaq Feder, Christian Frevel, William K. Gilders, Dominique Jaillard, Giuseppina Lenzo, Lionel Marti, Patrick Michel, Rüdiger Schmitt, Jeremy D. Smoak, and James W. Watts.

Author / Editor information

Nihan Christophe :

Christophe Nihan is Associate Professor of Hebrew Bible and the History of Ancient Israel at the University of Lausanne. He is the author of From Priestly Torah to Pentateuch: A Study in the Composition of the Book of Leviticus, coauthor of Opening the Books of Moses, and coeditor of several volumes, including most recently Writing Laws in Antiquity.

Reviews

“This volume is an important and timely contribution to the scholarly study of ritual texts and procedures in the Pentateuch and the Hebrew Bible as a whole. Important scholars in the field labor to advance the application of ritual studies, biblical intertextuality, rhetorical analysis, ancient Near Eastern comparative material, and related postbiblical literature to understanding the texts and ritual procedures in the Pentateuch.”
—Richard Averbeck, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School

“The contributions to Text and Ritual in the Pentateuch contrast the relationship between text and ritual in ancient Israel with that of other ancient Mediterranean and Western Asian societies and thus gain new insights for the challenge of reconstructing the performance of ancient rituals from written sources.”
—Thomas Hieke, author of Die Genealogien der Genesis

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Preface Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Abbreviations Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Introduction Christophe Nihan Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Chapter 1 Rituals in the Spells of the Book of the Dead in Ancient Egypt Giuseppina Lenzo Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	30
Chapter 2 Between Utterance and Dedication: Some Remarks on the Status of Textuality in Greek Ritual Practices Dominique Jaillard Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	58
Chapter 3 Inscriptions and Ritual Practices in the Neo-Assyrian Period: The Construction of a Building as an Example Lionel Marti Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	78
Chapter 4 Between Text and Ritual: The Function(s) of the Ritual Texts from Late Bronze Age Emar (Syria) Patrick Michel Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	107
Chapter 5 The Textualization of Priestly Ritual in Light of Hittite Sources Yitzhaq Feder Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	121
Chapter 6 Diversity and Centralization of the Temple Cult in the Archeological Record from the Iron II C to the Persian and Hellenistic Periods in Judah Rüdiger Schmitt Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	151
Chapter 7 Texts Are Not Rituals, and Rituals Are Not Texts , with an Example from Leviticus 12 James W. Watts Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	172
Chapter 8. The Texture of Rituals in the Book of Numbers: A Fresh Approach to Ritual Density, the Role of Tradition, and the Emergence of Diversity in Early Judaism Christian Frevel Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	188
Chapter 9. Speaking with a Divine Voice: The Rhetoric of Epistolary Performance in Numbers 6:22–27 Jeremy D. Smoak Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	215
Chapter 10 The Ritual Texts of Leviticus and the Creation of Ritualized Bodies Dorothea Erbele-Küster Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	240
Chapter 11 The Reception of Ritual Laws in the Early Second Temple Period: Evidence from Ezra- Nehemiah and Chronicles Julia Rhyder Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	255
Chapter 12. Text and Ritual in the Dead Sea Scrolls Daniel K. Falk Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	280
Chapter 13. “And They Would Read Before Him the Order for the Day”: The Textuality of Leviticus 16 in Mishnah Yoma, Tosefta Kippurim, and Sifra Aḥare Mot William K. Gilders Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	312
List of Contributors Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	327
Index of Ancient Sources Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	329
Subject Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	331

Language: English
Publisher: Penn State University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 348
Illustrations
- Illustrations: 6
- Images: 6
- Tables: 4
- Other: 6 illustrations
Keywords: Pentateuch; ritual; comparative studies; ancient Israel; ancient Mediterranean

eBook

Published: August 1, 2021
ISBN: 9781646021574