The materiality of power
Subtitle: explorations in the social history of early Israelite magic
By: Brian B. Schmidt
Series: Forschungen zum Alten Testament -- 105; Forschungen zum Alten Testament -- 105.
Publisher: Mohr Siebeck
Published: 2016
Place of publication: Tübingen
Language: eng
Number of pages: 258
ISBN-13: 9783161533020
Copyright date: 2016
Subjects: Jewish magic; Magic; Biblical teaching; Ancient Magic; Jews; Social life and customs; Antiquities; Goden; Demonologie
Description: "Were there countervailing cosmic realms ruled by Yahweh and Asherah in late pre-exilic Israel? Brian B. Schmidt presents five case studies corroborating the existence of a daimonic realm replete with intermediary protecticve spirits and a pandemonium that wreaked havoc upon both the living and dead. Having converged with Egypt's protective deities Bes and Beset,  YHWH and Asherah also possessed the enhanced powers to govern a counteractive apotropaic realm from which Asherah mediated divine portections for humanity." -- bck cover
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages 225-236) and indexes.
Table of contents: title: List of figures -- Acknowledgments -- Abbreviations; title: Magic "from the ground up" : image, object, epigraph, then text --; title: On defining magic : modernity's dilemma --; title: Searching for ancient magic --; title: Ancient magic, modern constructions --; title: Magic's material turn --; title: Doing israelite magic "from the ground up" --; title: "May YHWH bless you and keep you!" : cult and favissae at Kuntillet Ajrud --; title: Scouring "cultic" landscapes : the natural, human, and divine --; title: Kuntillet Ajrud's sacred locus : building a's bench room --; title: Were there favissae or intentional cult deposits? --; title: The evidence for a "decorative pithos libation" rite --; title: The larger decorated pithos repertoire : "from Z to A" --; title: Divining the markings : the decorated sherds --; title: Deciphering decorated sherds as whole pithoi --; title: The Z fragment or sherd --; title: The so-called pithos A courtyard fragment --; title: A second immanent ritual setting : the south storeroom's locus 8 --; title: Kuntillet Ajrud's other ritual annexes and their favissae --; title: The ritual lives of Kuntillet Ajrud's decorated pithoi --; title: The collocation of apotropaism : the Numinous Pithoi, Walls, and Loci --; title: Transmitting the numinous : from drafts to murals --; title: Pithos decor as scribal-artisan drafts --; title: The case of the two "seated figures" --; title: The case of the two "overhead captions" --; title: The case of the two "inscribed blessings" --; title: The case of the two "artistic repertoires" --; title: The case for scribal-artisan drafts --; title: Anomaly or convention : pithoi as large-area drafting surfaces --; title: Figural drafts on limestone "ostraca" or "flakes" --; title: Epigraphic drafts on limestone slabs and whole jars --; title: Constructing pithos rites : the images and epigraphs --; title: Gendering the divine --; title: Gender marking the masculine --; title: Gender marking the feminine --; title: Gender juxtaposed --; title: Bearded ladies and numinous necks --; title: Sizing up gendered partners --; title: "Loops and leggings" --; title: A cavorting consort? --; title: Up close and personal : overlapping as scribal-artisan technique --; title: A test case : the worshipper procession scene --; title: The bes-like dwarfism of worshipper M --; title: the worshipper scene's overhead caption --; title: Overlapping and the bes-like figures --; title: The lyre player --; title: Dancers and musicians? --; title: Delineating inscribed divine speech --; title: Making blessings and dedications as captions --; title: The responsive graffiti --; title: Other related texts --; title: Convergence or chaos : the complex integrated scenes --; title: The integrated scenes on the pithoi --; title: Corresponding scenes on the painted plastered walls --; title: Libations and votives : rites for an Egyptianizing Israelite pantheon --; title: Constructing apotropaic bes and beset --; title: Bes and beset : form and style --; title: Bes iconography --; title: Journeying with bes : the levant and beyond --; title: Translating bes and beset : from image to text --; title: Bes to Yahweh, Beset to Asherah --; title: The Other gods : el, baal, and the elim in wall inscription 4.2 --; title: The Goddess Asherah as mediatrix --; title: Asherah in first-millennium ancient near eastern sources --; title: Asherah in the hebrew Bible --; title: A hybridized desert iconic creole --; title: Provisioning and protecting : Yahwism's Apotropaic presence --; title: The decorated pithos loci --; title: The plastered wall paintings --; title: Life-sustaining power : the lotus flower --; title: The royal seated figure --; title: Constructing aspects of the pithos libation rite --; title: The numinously empowered plastered wall paintings --; title: The numinous and the mundane : Kuntillet Ajrud more holistically --; title: Summary --; title: Godspeed on the "other side": text, tomb, image, and evil --; title: The ketef hinnom amulets --; title: The social matrix of early judean apotropaism --; title: Amulets galore : the tale of a Jerusalem tomb --; title: Converging nonutilitarian artifacts --; title: The cooccurrence of cultic assemblages --; title: Three regional site samples of late iron II amuletic magic --; title: Ketef Hinnom's amulets reassessed --; title: The dating of the amulets --; title: A new reading : an "eternal" temple? --; title: Other rereadings : "the evil (one), " "the exorciser of the evil (one), " and the demonic --; title: Remnants of a wider levantine daimonic --; title: Summary : amuletic magic in judean religious life --; title: Khirbet el-Qom --; title: Khirbet el-Qom tomb 2 : epigraph meets image meets object --; title: The site : tomb 2's wider cemetery setting --; title: Tomb 2 : the immanent sociohistorical context --; title: The 'telling" tomb assemblages --; title: Narrowing the context : the incised human hand --; title: Changing views on early israelite cosmological beliefs --; title: The text of Khirbet El-Qom's inscription 3 --; title: The meaning of the palaeographic doppelg̃nger --; title: Was there (a) pandemonium in early Israelite tradition? the daimonic dimensions of deuteronomy --; title: The demonic in ancient Israelite tradition --; title: Demon or daimon? the haunting question --; title: Deuteronomy 32 : a reassessment --; title: Deuteronomy 32:8-9 --; title: Summary --; title: Deuteronomy 32:43 --; title: Summary --; title: Deuteronomy 32:17 --; title: Identifying hebrew shedim: cognate or conceptual parallels? --; title: On deifying daimons and "demonizing" deities in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia --; title: The shedu-gods of Psalm 106 --; title: Deuteronoy 32:17 and Greco-Roman Egyptian Daimonia --; title: Summary --; title: Deuteronomy 32:24 --; title: A postscript to pandemonium : reimagining 'ĔLŌHÎM in 1 sam 28:13 --; title: The MT and LXX translations of 1 Sam 28:8-14 --; title: Samuel's ghost and other daimons at endor --; title: A case of prophet deified or ghost-assisting diamons? --; title: 1 Samuel 8 : narrating the case against the divine-human --; title: Reconsidering the participants in 1 Samuel 28:12-15 --; title: An early israelite daimonic pandemonium : revenants and other divine entities --; title: On demon demographics in ancient Israel --; title: Material aspects of early Israelite apotropaic magic : integrating image, object, epigraph, and biblical tradition --; title: Some closing comments : on matters of plausibility and identity --; title: Beset : the identity and role of bes's female partner --; title: The plausibility of Kuntillet Ajrud's divine convergence --; title: The demonization of deities and the deification of daimons --; title: Beyond demonization and deification : convergent, hybrid deities --; title: Late iron age cyprus : two case studies in "bes hybridity" --; title: Pyla : the deity reshef as "bes locally imagined" --; title: A bes trio from Athienou-Malloura --; title: Making explicit the implicit : 'egyptianizing' samarian hybridity and Kuntillet Ajrud's graffito 3.1 --; title: Kuntillet Ajrud's unique cult --; title: Magic's materials : image, text, and artifact --; title: Discerning Asherah's role --; title: The daimonic in deuteronomy 32 ---- Conclusion-- References-- Subject index-- Ancient sources index-- Modern authors index.