bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Sickness and Healing
Authors: Rooke Deborah 
Published: October 2020

Abstract
Following some methodological remarks the chapter briefly reviews the vocabulary of sickness used in the biblical Hebrew text. It then examines instances of sickness and healing that are described in the Hebrew Bible, in order to establish how sickness is understood and how ritual might therefore relate to it. Aspects considered include the relationship between sickness and sin; whether and how YHWH is involved in causing sickness; epidemics versus individual cases of sickness; and instances of ritual action, broadly understood, that are used to address sickness-related issues. Such instances of ritual action include consulting a functionary such as a priest or prophet, and performing ritual laments and prayers either at home or at a shrine. Two instances of concerns relating to childbearing are also considered, both of which are pictured in the context of ritual action at a shrine.
Death and Afterlife
Authors: Schmidt Brian B. 
Published: October 2020

Abstract
This chapter surveys what is known about ancient Israel’s beliefs and practices relating to the end of life, the experience of death, and one’s transformation into the life thereafter. The results were gleaned from the integration of material cultural data, epigraphic sources, and the critical assessment of biblical texts. Ancient Israelites placed significant emphasis on living the good life and experiencing the good death. In addition to the conventional mourning and burial rites performed on behalf of the deceased, both medium-range and long-term rituals were also observed. These comprised such rites as the care and feeding of the dead, who apparently possessed a post-mortem sentience and also a ghostly existence in the netherworld (see the references in 1 Sam 28 to the ʾôb “ghost” and ʾereṣ “earth”—a synonym of Sheol). These rites also included the commemoration of the dead in which the legacy and exemplary lives the dead had formerly led were ritually remembered, recalled, and passed forward. As such, these commemorative rituals also constituted a form of immortality of the dead; one that was perpetuated cross-generationally in the minds of family and community survivors.
Divine Presence and Absence
Authors: Berlejung Angelika 
Published: October 2020

Abstract
The topic of divine presence and absence is embedded in the theological debate about the communication between human beings and their gods. Intact communication and divine presence belong together, as well as disturbed communication and divine absence. The interpretation and construction of their own history (of the individual, as well as of the collective) as result of the interplay between divine presence/blessing or divine absence/punishment was a basic pattern. Different literary traditions in the Old Testament attest how the theology of the presence of YHWH was in pre-exilic times a local kind of play of traditional ancient Near Eastern conceptions and mainly connected to Zion. However, after the fall of Jerusalem (perhaps already Samaria), the theology of YHWH’s presence underwent various processes of mobilization, spiritualization, and abstraction. The rebuilding of the Second Temple in Jerusalem was a new impulse for the discussion about the mode(s) of divine presence. Several concepts found their way into the canon which are sketched in this contribution.
Ritual and Worship at Qumran
Authors: Schuller Eileen M. 
Published: October 2020

AbstractThis chapter describes key aspects of the ritual and worship of a specific group within Second Temple Judaism, especially as can be known from the written texts preserved in the Dead Sea Scrolls. These manuscripts, discovered some seventy years ago in the caves near the site of Qumran, provide much previously unknown information, both descriptions about ritual practice and actual texts of many prayers, psalms, blessings, and liturgies that are known only because they were preserved in the caves. Many of these scrolls are very fragmentary, and any reconstruction of the details of worship practice must remain tentative. The Scrolls contain collections of set prayers for the days of the week, the days of the months, for feasts, songs for the Sabbath, a collection of Thanksgiving Psalms (Hodayot) that are expressive of the distinctive worldview and spirituality of this group, and liturgies for entrance into the community through a covenant renewal ceremony
Islamic Ritual
Authors: Gauvain Richard 
Published: October 2020

Abstract
This chapter begins by introducing readers to the five “pillars of Islam” (arkan al-Islam), as well as to other essential aspects of Islamic ritual (section 1). By so doing, it recognizes the enduring power of these rituals, in particular, to provide all Muslims—despite their differences in historical, socio-cultural and political realities—with a shared sense of religious identity. The following section (2) nuances this presentation of Islamic ritual as intrinsically a cohesive force, which necessarily relies heavily on canonical Sunni legal sources and authorities, by exploring five alternative strategies to ritual: Shi’i, esoteric, folk, rationalist, and reformist. Thereafter, it briefly discusses the potential of Islamic ritual in a variety of sources and contexts to both reflect and generate social hierarchies (section 3). It concludes by reflecting on Western scholarly approaches to Islamic ritual and by suggesting future directions for its study (section 4).
The Politics of Worship
Authors: Morrow William S. 
Published: October 2020

AbstractCases of politically oriented rituals used to maintain the kingdom of Judah and its successor societies are surveyed from the beginning of the Davidic monarchy through to the Hasmonaean era. Preference is given to the concept of “national religion” instead of “official” or “state religion” to describe attempts to centralize worship on Jerusalem during this period. Challenges were posed to these efforts by Judah’s internal religious pluralism. Social configurations at the family and local levels were maintained by forms of worship not always amenable to subordination to centralized authority. After a general discussion of the concept of political rituals, interactions between the impulse towards a national religion and forms of family and local cultic practices are described. The ideology of kingship (especially in the royal psalms), and the politics of sacrifice in the post-exilic era receive particular attention.
Socio-Religious Functions of Worship
Authors: Cook Stephen L. 
Published: October 2020

Abstract
What were the socio-religious functions of worship and ritual within ancient Israel? How did worship affect and form Israelite society, and vice versa? To ask this question is not to reduce worship to a mere social phenomenon, lacking, for example, theological witness or spiritual efficacy. Rather, it is to recognize that Israelite worship had a social context and, among its several other roles, had significant social effects. It expressed and buttressed the shared values and convictions of the community of YHWH, or, better, of specific Yahwistic groups. It publicly embodied religious orientations and habits. It enacted the traditions and teachings of the societal authority or segment that authorized and choreographed it. Participants in Israelite worship publicly acknowledged the worldview and attendant lifestyle communicated as social meaning by the proceedings.
Rituals and Ritual Theory
Authors: Gruenwald Ithamar 
Published: October 2020

Abstract
It is customary to view rituals as a dominant feature in the practice of religions. Thus, scholars generally discuss rituals in terms of a theological setting and focus on meaning, reason, and purpose. However, this chapter proposes a wider context from which to view ritual that takes into account the behavioral factors that are embedded in performing the rituals. It suggests that a ritual element may be seen in every human action that is structured and performed as a timed and repetitive event and that, in turn, such events are likely to foster ritualistic patterns of behavior. In this sense, there is no structural difference between one kind of ritual and the other. A discussion of these matters constitutes substantial parts of this chapter.
Social and Cultural Anthropology
Authors: Gilders William K. 
Published: October 2020

AbstractThis chapter looks at the interpretation of ritual in the Hebrew Bible from the perspective of anthropology, which has had a close symbiotic relationship with biblical studies since the emergence of the comparative study of human culture in the 19th century. Beginning in the 1960s, a new wave of anthropological interest in biblical ritual was catalyzed especially by the work of Mary Douglas. Biblical scholars have drawn on anthropologists’ theories of ritual. The dominant approach to ritual in both anthropology and biblical studies identifies it as symbolic, representational activity. This perspective has been challenged by interpreters who highlight the absence of indigenous symbolic interpretation of ritual in a number of societies and urge caution in constructing elaborate symbolic systems for biblical ritual. Study of biblical ritual involves the ethnography of ancient Israelite texts about ritual activity.
Near Eastern Practice of Law in Deuteronomy
Authors: Russell Stephen C. 
Published: October 2020

Abstract
This chapter examines the implications of documentary evidence on Near Eastern legal practice for understanding legal material in the biblical book of Deuteronomy. The chapter extends to Deuteronomy B. Wells’s approach to biblical law by observing similar legal issues, similar legal reasoning, and similar legal remedies shared by the Deuteronomic Code and cuneiform records of ancient Near Eastern legal practice. These data suggest that Deuteronomy was produced by scribes who were directly familiar with legal practice or who utilized textual traditions in turn directly rooted in legal practice. Deuteronomy presents legal practice in a systematic way, probing its underlying principles. At the same time, the data examined here also suggest that the Deuteronomic Code was not merely descriptive of legal practice. For example, in the law about fugitives, the Deuteronomic Code presents a vision of Israel’s international status that did not precisely match historical reality. As a literary work, Deuteronomy embodied a political and religious vision of Israel, including its legal system.
Deuteronomy in the Texts from the Judean Desert
Authors: Feldman Ariel 
Published: October 2020

Abstract
Second Temple Jewish texts found in the Judean Desert are of paramount importance for those interested in early transmission, interpretation, and reception of Deuteronomy. These texts, particularly the scrolls found in the caves near Khirbet Qumran, yield multiple manuscripts of Deuteronomy that predate the medieval copies by more than one thousand years. Revealing a plethora of variant readings, some known from other textual witnesses and some new, they indicate that a variety of texts of Deuteronomy were circulating in the Second Temple period. Other scrolls found at Qumran, both those that reflect a worldview of a sectarian community and those that seem to come from wider Jewish circles, utilize Deuteronomy in myriad ways. This chapter offers a sample of these various kinds of intertextualities and concludes with a brief survey of Deuteronomic themes and ideas that have impacted the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Latin American Liberation Theology as a Response to Deuteronomy
Authors: Garcia Bachmann Mercedes 
Published: October 2020

Abstract
A conversation leading to a mutual conversion between Deuteronomy and its readers in Latin America is no more than fifty years old. Most scholars in South America—and from these, an overwhelming majority of males—have looked at certain texts in search of answers for their concerns—poverty, tithing, resident aliens, migrants, ecology, or interreligious relationships—rather than at Deuteronomy in its own right: Both Deuteronomy and Latin American biblical scholars have conversed with each other and have undergone conversion because of such conversations. That Deuteronomy has the potential to convert us does not need much explanation within churchgoers or theological people. That Latin American scholars make Deuteronomy’s conversion possible might not be self-evident. I mean it in two ways. First, in order to have a conversation, both partners must listen to each other, and such listening brings in possible changes or, at least, respect for the dialogue partner. Secondly, Deuteronomy becomes the object of multiple readings and in that sense, when read from Latin America, it becomes a different Deuteronomy, so to speak, from an African, European, queer, or any other Deuteronomy.
Ezekiel and Gender
Authors: Kalmanofsky Amy 
Published: October 2020

Abstract
This chapter identifies a gender instability manifest by the three major characters in Ezekiel—Israel, the prophet, and God—and shows the ways in which these characters exhibit a compromised masculinity, and the ways in which their gender identities are interconnected. Ezekiel and Israel become less male when they encounter God, the ultimate male; and God becomes less male when encountering sinful Israel. Recognizing gender instability in Ezekiel provides insight into Ezekiel’s gender rhetoric, and the ways in which the text privileges masculinity. Maleness is the preferred gender identity for God, the prophet, and Israel. Compromised masculinity and femaleness indicate weakness—and perhaps ironically, they function together to protect and privilege masculinity. Perceiving gender instability also reveals the ways in which gender is not fixed, but fluid. Gender identity is relational in Ezekiel. God, the prophet, and Israel are in a dynamic relationship with one another that impacts their gender identity.
Embodiment in Ezekiel
Authors: Graybill Rhiannon 
Published: October 2020

Abstract
This chapter shows how embodiment plays an important role in constructing meaning in the book of Ezekiel. The text contains a number of bodies, including human bodies (Ezekiel, the people of Judah), supernatural or divine bodies (Yahweh, the cherubim, various divine messengers), metaphorical bodies (the female bodies in Ezekiel 16 and 23), foreign bodies (various foreign nations), and animate “dry bones” in Ezekiel 37. The body is central to the practice of prophecy in the book. It is likewise fundamental to performances of gender and to the negotiation of the relationship between Yahweh and the people, including Ezekiel himself. Focusing on the body also highlights the significance of masculinity in the text, as well as its instability.
The Executive Branch in Israel
Authors: Kenig Ofer 
Published: October 2020

Abstract
As in other parliamentary democracies, the Israeli government is dependent on the confidence of parliament. Israel is a country with a diverse society, divided by multidimensional political issues and using a proportional representation electoral system. It is therefore not surprising to find a multiparty system with a highly fragmented parliament. This setting produces the central institutional feature of its executive branch: coalition politics. This chapter outlines the process of cabinet formation and the types of coalitions formed, presents an overview of the position of the prime minister, describes the work and structure of cabinet ministers and ministries, explains why governments seldom complete a full term, and assesses claims about both instability and nongovernability in Israel.
Israel and the Palestinians
Authors: Sela Avraham 
Published: October 2020

Abstract
Israel’s theory and practice in the conflict with the Palestinians since the beginning of the Zionist enterprise reveals continued striving for secure and exclusive Jewish national territorial sovereignty over historic Palestine while disregarding Palestinians’ collective political rights and claims to the same territory. Nonetheless, changing regional and international constraints brought Israeli decision makers to shift their strategies in coping with the Palestinian political/military challenges to the country’s security and international legitimacy. This chapter analyzes Israel’s shifting policies toward the Palestinians, from long-term denial and military responses to negotiated agreements and tense coexistence with a self-governing Palestinian authority in the West Bank and Gaza Strip since the 1993 Oslo Accords. Since that period, however, the collapse of the Oslo process in the year 2000 and consequent Palestinian uprising, the increased role of religion in the conflict on both the Israeli and Palestinian sides, Israel’s insistence on continuing its overall domination of the Palestinian territories, and the stalemated diplomatic process all underline the narrowing options for bringing this conflict to any peaceful end.
US–Israeli Relationship
Authors: Stein Kenneth W. 
Published: October 2020

Abstract
The US–Israeli relationship is complicated, dynamic, multidimensional, and enduring. From initial American governmental opposition to the present, Washington has become Israel’s most trusted ally. Rooted in common bonds, entrenched military sharing, and valued strategic interests, the association has also greatly influenced the shaping and sustenance of American Jewish identity. Four factors have influenced the relationship’s evolution: (1) deep American Jewish involvement in the American electoral system; (2) American government impatience with regularly objectionable Arab state behavior toward Washington; (3) a US imperative to contain threats to the region’s politics and states, including the Cold War, Islamic radicalism, and Iranian adventurism; and (4) how Washington retained its perceived need not to alienate Arab oil-producing states. The evolving relationship is explained in three time periods: distance after World War II, the unwavering embrace of Israel’s security from the1960s onward, and deep disagreements with that sustained embrace seventy years later.
Religion in Israeli Politics
Authors: Ben-Porat Guy 
Published: October 2020

Abstract
Religion has played an important part in Israeli politics, and religious–secular contentions are likely to remain part of the political landscape. In the early years of Israel’s statehood religious politics was contained by common goals; secular ambivalence toward religion; and a political leadership able to create agreements, both formal and informal, known as the status quo. Beginning in the 1990s, however, economic, demographic, and sociocultural changes undermined the agreements, and religious questions became politicized. Israeli governments were unable to mediate between new demands of secular and religious groups, so subpolitics—political actions outside the formal political sphere—combined with traditional politics to become a way for Israelis to struggle for and against religious authority.
Electoral Behavior in Israel
Authors: Shapira Assaf , Rahat Gideon 
Published: October 2020

Abstract
This chapter reviews, analyzes, and explains general patterns of electoral behavior in national elections in Israel from 1949 to 2019. It examines both patterns of voter turnout and the choice of a specific party. While it looks at historical trends, it focuses mainly on more recent developments. The types of factors that explain variance and trends in these behavioral patterns are not unique to Israel. Yet the specific relative weight of each factor clearly tells much of the story of Israeli politics. These factors include, especially, the influence of religiosity on Jewish voting patterns and the separate development in voting patterns (turnout and party choice) of the minority population of Israeli Arab citizens.
The Field of Language and Race
Authors: Alim H. Samy , Reyes Angela , Kroskrity Paul V. 
Published: October 2020

AbstractThis handbook is the first volume to offer a sustained theoretical exploration of all aspects of language and race from a linguistic anthropological perspective. A growing number of scholars hold that rather than fixed and predetermined, race is created out of continuous and repeated discourses emerging from individuals and institutions within specific histories, political economic systems, and everyday interactions. This handbook demonstrates how linguistic analysis brings a crucial perspective to this project by revealing the ways in which language and race are mutually constituted as social realities. Not only does the volume position issues of race, racism, and racialization as central to language-based scholarship, but it also examines these processes from an explicitly critical and anti-racist perspective. The process of racialization—an enduring yet evolving social process steeped in centuries of colonialism and capitalism—is central to linguistic anthropological approaches. This volume captures state-of-the-art research in this important and necessary yet often overlooked area of inquiry and points the way forward in establishing future directions of research in this rapidly expanding field, including the need for more studies of language and race in non-US contexts. Covering a range of sites from Angola, Brazil, Canada, Cuba, Italy, Liberia, the Philippines, South Africa, the United Kingdom, the United States, and unceded Indigenous territories, the handbook offers theoretical, reflexive takes on the field of language and race, the larger histories and systems that influence these concepts, the bodies that enact and experience them, and finally, the expressions and outcomes that emerge as a result.
Immigration, Language, and Racial Becoming
Authors: Ibrahim Awad 
Published: October 2020

AbstractThe syntax of Blackness, this chapter argues, complicates the categories of immigration and language in ways that are yet to be fully understood. When Black immigrants arrive at the shores of North America, they go through an extremely complicated, rhizomatic process of identity transformation, where their identification is not with mainstream but with North American Blackness. For Black immigrants, to become American or Canadian is to become Black, that is, to enter an ethnographic process of observation, translation, and taking note of how people walk, talk, dress, etc. This renders Blackness a multicultural, multiethnic, and multilingual category, which in turn impacts what Black immigrants learn and how they learn it. They learn Black English, which they access in and through Black popular culture. What we learn, I conclude, is no longer linear, haphazard, and without intentionality. In learning what they learn, Black immigrants are saying, “Aren’t we Blacks too?”
Language, Race, and Reflexivity
Authors: Lo Adrienne , Chun Elaine 
Published: October 2020

AbstractThis chapter reviews research on language and race in the United States, concentrating on two paradigms of research: research focused on linguistic differences and racial discrimination and research focused on ideologies and racialization. It examines several thorny conceptual issues that arise in the first paradigm and that specifically relate to the notion of the ‘ethnolect’, including their labeling, distinctiveness, authenticity, and multidimensionality. It also argues for the importance of a reflexive approach that entails looking at racialized language as an ideological construct and situating processes of racialization across multiple scales of space and time and within structures of power. Such an approach recognizes how processes of racialization, which take place in both scholarly and everyday contexts, often prioritize the perspectives and interests of certain people over those of others.