Mediating Between Heaven and Earth: Communication with the Divine in the Ancient Near East

Description

This volume brings together experts in the study of ancient prayers and divination methods to analyse the variety of means by which human beings sought to communicate with their gods and by which the gods were seen to communicate with their worshippers. In a departure from previous scholarship, the volume brings together the study of prophecy, as an intuitive form of divination, with the study of technical methods of communication and other forms of institutionalised communication such as prayer. Such a format allows divine-human communication to be studied in both directions simultaneously: the means by which the divine communicates to human beings through divination, and the means by which human beings communicate with the divine through prayer. This new perspective on the study of divine-human-divine communication allows scholars to better appreciate the way in which communication and the relationship between heaven and earth was conceived in the ancient near East.

C.L. Crouch is Lecturer in Hebrew Bible at the University of Nottingham, UK. Jonathan Stoekl is Research Assistant at University College London. Anna Elise Zernecke is Research Associate at the Johannes Gutenberg-Universitat Mainz.

Among several strengths of this monograph, one may mention a good mixture of junior and senior researchers; contributions from Cuneiformists and Hebraists, as well as inspiration from, and cooperation with, several different research traditions . . . The editors must be congratulated for this innovative new contribution at the forefront of international...research. Mediating between Heaven and Earth should be in all serious libraries. -- H. M. Barstad, University of Edinburgh, UK * Journal of Theological Studies, vol. 65 *