God, Gods, and Humankind (Worldview)
The chapter gives a working definition of the concepts of God/gods in ancient Near Eastern and Mediterranean cultures and describes the character of the Israelite god YHWH against this background as a participant in the temple cult on the basis of Biblical texts. As a deity that was above all imagin...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Oxford University Press
2020
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| In: |
The Oxford handbook of ritual and worship in the Hebrew Bible
Year: 2020, Pages: 144-159 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (Verlag) |
| Summary: | The chapter gives a working definition of the concepts of God/gods in ancient Near Eastern and Mediterranean cultures and describes the character of the Israelite god YHWH against this background as a participant in the temple cult on the basis of Biblical texts. As a deity that was above all imagined as a king, YHWH received ritual gifts, which he reciprocated through the effects of his salvific presence for Israel. The sacrificial practice in the temple cella (“food offering” on a table) and in the courtyard (burnt offering on the altar) signaled the acceptance by God while it preserved his transcendence. For the imagination of the human participants, the gracious reception by the king YHWH must have been as real as other social facts. The “anthropomorphism” of the worldview expressed by biblical texts should be specified as “sociomorphism,” since the ritual encounter with the divine followed primarily social (courtly) rules. |
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| ISBN: | 0190944935 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: The Oxford handbook of ritual and worship in the Hebrew Bible
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190222116.013.7 |