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Materiality of Power: Explorations in the Social History of Early Israelite Magic

Forschungen zum Alten Testament No. 105


By: Brian B. Schmidt
July 2016
Mohr Siebeck
Distributed by Coronet Books
ISBN: 9783161533020
258 Pages
$142.50 Hardcover


Description:

Brian B. Schmidt presents five case studies in which architectural spaces, artifacts, inscriptions and biblical manuscripts confirm the existence of a powerful daimonischen Empire in the late pre-exilic Israel, along with a rudimentary pandemonium, foreshadowed the later demonological constructs.The material and the epigraphic data from Kuntillet Ajrud, Ketef Hinnom and Khirbet el-Qom, in conjunction with the text products from Deuteronomy 32 and 1 Sam 28, show that the members of this pandemonium were causing havoc among the living and the dead. occupy the same data indicate that there was also a balancing, apotropaic realm - a realm over which YHWH and his Asherah, represented as two internationally recognized protective deities Bes and Beset, ruled together and in which Asherah served as YHWH mediator. Moreover convey various other physical media such as amulets and engraved blessings which have been designed to express the apotropaic power, counteracting this realm.