Desert Transformations
Studies in the Book of Numbers
by Christian Frevel
Hardback (Published)
(February 2020)
ISBN: 9783161539671
9.37 x 6.54 inches
Price: $193.00
In stock
Classical Pentateuch research mainly dealt with the books of Genesis, Exodus and Deuteronomy and it is only in recent decades that the literary and theological meanings of Moses’ fourth book has been rediscovered. In this volume, Christian Frevel lets the interplay between narrative and legislative material – which is often not understood – emerge into new light, examining the texts of the Book of Numbers as inner-biblical interpretations and tradition-bound innovations. Cloaked in the Israelites’ 40-year long sojourn in the desert, the Book of Numbers presents a tightly-woven fabric of texts which reflect the social and cultic orders, discuss questions of leadership and explore the meaning of the Promised Land to Israel’s existence. The Book of Numbers is characterized in its entirety by transformations: for example, the exodus generation becomes the desert generation and leadership is transferred from Moses to Joshua, from Aaron to Eleazar. Important innovations such as the hierarchical organization of the cult, including the role of the Levites or the hereditary law concerning daughters, are cultivated within these transformations. The people’s time in the desert (re)form their social frameworks and renders them sustainable for the existence in the Promised Land. Important themes such as community and cult organization, the enduring election of the Israelites, the meaning of the Promised Land for the collective identity, questions of hierarchical leadership and democratic participation, of collective guilt and individual liability, along with many other aspects, are dealt with in the texts. Without the literary traditions of the Book of Numbers, which were mostly set down around the 5th-4th centuries BCE, the formation of the Pentateuch as Torah would not have been conceivable. The studies of this volume reveal the thematic diversity of the book against a backdrop of its literary creation within the Penta- and Hexateuch.
- By (author) Christian Frevel
Other Titles in this Series
Die Ägyptenworte im Ezechielbuch
Eine literarhistorische und religionsgeschichtliche Analyse von Ez 29–32
Trugende Prophetenworte
Zum Umgang mit falscher und unerfullter Prophetie im Alten Testament im Kontext altorientalischer und antiker Divination
Volume 165
Gottes himmlische Wohnstatt
Transformationen im Verhaltnis von Gott und Himmel in tempeltheologischen Entwurfen des Alten Testaments in der Exilszeit
Volume 119
Schriftgelehrte Traditionsliteratur
Fallstudien zur innerbiblischen Schriftauslegung im Alten Testament
Volume 77
Die JHWH-Religion und die Vorstellung göttlicher Gesetzgebung
Überschneidungen zwischen der Rechtsentwicklung und der Sphäre der Religion in der Geschichte des antiken Israel und Juda
Grundfragen der historischen Exegese
Methodologische, philologische und hermeneutische Beitrage zum Alten Testament
Volume 95
Geschichte und Gebet
Die Rezeption der biblischen Geschichte in den Psalmen des Alten Testaments
Volume 94
Social Groups behind Biblical Traditions
Identity Perspectives from Egypt, Transjordan, Mesopotamia, and Israel in the Second Temple Period
Neuanfang und Kontinuitat in Jerusalem
Studien zu den hermeneutischen Strategien im Esra-Nehemia-Buch
Volume 104
Das Angesicht JHWHs
Studien zu seinem höfischen und kultischen Bedeutungshintergrund in den Psalmen und in Exodus 32-34
Volume 55
Gezahlte Geschichte
Systematik, Quellen und Entwicklung der synchronistischen Chronologie in den Konigebuchern
Volume 142
Studien zum Dodekapropheton II
Gesammelte Aufsätze zu Joel, Obadja, Jona, Micha und Nahum
Volume 133
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