Entre dieux et hommes : anges, démons et autres figures intermédiaires
Actes du colloque organisé par le Collège de France, Paris, les 19 et 20 mai 2014
Edited by Thomas Römer Edited by Bertrand Dufour Edited by Fabian Pfitzmann Edited by Christoph Uehlinger
Hardback (Published)
(October 2017)
ISBN: 9783525544112
6.34 x 9.25 inches
Price: $138.00
In stock
It has long been an important issue for many religions, both ancient and modern, to imagine and question the differences between humans and deities as well as their means to communicate between each other. Ancient Near Eastern texts and iconography conceive this relationship in more than binary terms (i.e., human vs. divine): they presume the existence of various intermediate and often liminal entities, whom scholars have usually classified in terms of “angels”, “demons”, “heroes” etc.
It has long been an important issue for many religions, both ancient and modern, to imagine and question the differences between humans and deities as well as their means to communicate between each other. Ancient Near Eastern texts and iconography conceive this relationship in more than binary terms (i.e., human vs. divine): they presume the existence of various intermediate and often liminal entities, whom scholars have usually classified in terms of “angels”, “demons”, “heroes” etc. According to ancient belief, such beings (some anonymous, others named such as Pazuzu, Azazel, Gabriel, Metatron, or Satan…) could take over roles that were considered as unfitting for the gods themselves; they could act as messengers and intermediaries, or in contrast even rival the gods. The dead (or at least the prominent among the deceased, such as kings or prophets) could be considered as intermediates in their own right, since they were thought to have special knowledge of a sphere that the living could only imagine imperfectly. To keep such entities at a distance or to satisfy them and gain their sympathy could at times prove no less challenging than to serve the gods. On the other hand, imagining those entities helped ancient societies and individuals, and particularly the literary elites among them, to manage and structure the contingencies of the world they lived in. The present volume offers the proceedings of an international symposium, organized by the chair of Milieux Bibliques and held at the College de France on 19-20 May 2014, dealing with intermediate beings as imagined in ancient Near Eastern societies and reflected in their textual and visual records. The aim was to get a better sense of how such entities were conceived, what roles they were attributed and what functions they fulfilled in culture and society, religion and literature, ritual and belief. The contributions scrutinize cuneiform and other ancient Near Eastern texts, as well as biblical literature, in order to understand ancient Mesopotamian, Levantine and Israelite conceptions of human-divine hybrids and intermediaries; other papers address ancient Egyptian, Jewish, Manichaean, Christian, Zoroastrian, and Islamic sources and beliefs. In all their variety, and in the variety of the numinous figures (collectives or individuals, anonymous or named) that are analyzed, these studies provide vivid insights into how the ancients experienced and modeled the reality they lived in when mobilizing human-divine intermediates for their own concerns.
- Edited by Thomas Römer
- Edited by Bertrand Dufour
- Edited by Fabian Pfitzmann
- Edited by Christoph Uehlinger
Other Titles in this Series
The Text of Leviticus
Proceedings of the Third International Colloquium of the Dominique Barthelemy Institute, held in Fribourg (October 2015)
Volume 292
Divine Names on the Spot
Towards a Dynamic Approach of Divine Denominations in Greek andSemitic Contexts
Volume 293
Oral et écrit dans l’Antiquité orientale: les processus de rédaction et d’édition
Actes du colloque organisé par le Collège de France, Paris, les 26 et 27 mai 2016
Volume 291
The Power of Images
The Poetics of Violence in Lamentations 2 and Ancient Near Eastern Art
Volume 297
Wortschöpfung
Die Memphitische Theologie und die Siegesstele des Pije - zwei Zeugen kultureller Repräsentation in der 25. Dynastie
Volume 243
Le peuple aux trois noms
Une histoire de l'ancien Israël à travers le prisme de ses ethnonymes
Volume 298
Représenter dieux et hommes dans le Proche-Orient ancien et dans la Bible
Actes du colloque organisé par le Collège de France, Paris, les 5 et 6 mai 2015
Volume 287
Israeliten und Phönizier
Ihre Beziehungen im Spiegel der Archäologie und der Literatur des Alten Testaments und seiner Umwelt
Volume 235
Architecture, Iconography, and Text
New Studies on the Northwest Palace Reliefs of Ashurnasirpal II
Volume 301
When Gods Speak to Men
Divine Speech according to Textual Sources in the Ancient Mediterranean Basin
Volume 289
Divine Names on the Spot II
Exploring the Potentials of Names through Images and Narratives
Volume 299
Les fluides corporels en Égypte et au Proche-Orient anciens
Actes du colloque organisé à l'Université Paul-Valéry, Montpellier, 5-7 septembre 2019
Volume 309
Khirbet Qeiyafa in the Shephelah
Papers Presented at a Colloquium of the Swiss Society of Ancient Near Eastern Studies Held at the University of Bern, September 6, 2014
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