Prophecy in the Hebrew Bible and Ancient Egypt
Edited by Christopher B. Hays Edited by John Huddlestun Edited by Thomas Schneider
Throughout their histories, ancient Egypt and ancient Israel/Judah were in regular contact. Egypt was for Israel an important political and cultural point of reference as its neighbour across the land bridge of North Sinai. Egyptian influence on Israel and the larger Levant was intense throughout the 1st millennium BCE, an area that had been a province of Egypt in the preceding Late Bronze Age (1550–1100 BCE). The cultural dialogue between the two areas took place by means of the movements of population groups and via trade and diplomacy. Narrowing the focus to the genre of prophecy, the comparative situation is more difficult, since we seem to encounter here one of the aforementioned literary differences: Although ancient Egypt was deeply invested in divination in its myriad forms, the Egyptians did not generally record or compile prophetic utterances, at least as far as the data tell us. This has led a fair number of scholars to conclude that prophecy did not exist in Egypt; and if prophecy did not exist in Egypt, then what is there to compare? The present volume seeks to call new attention to the numerous ways in which knowledge of ancient Egypt played a role in the formation of the Hebrew Bible and is thus crucial to its interpretation. The studies compiled here enrich our body of data about divinatory practices, refine our comparative methodology, and point to a variety of ways in which our understanding of the Hebrew Bible’s major prophets is informed by Egyptological data. Taken together, they invite further study on related fronts. It is to be hoped that these perspectives will be further integrated into the wider picture of ancient Near Eastern religions.
Christopher B. Hays, John Huddlestun, and Thomas Schneider: Introduction: Prophecy in the Hebrew Bible and Ancient Egypt
I. Prophecy and Divination in Egypt
Alexandra von Lieven: Divine Will and Human Decision-Making: Divinatory Techniques in Ancient Egypt and their Hermeneutics
John W. Hilber: Egyptian Prophecy: Clarifying Some Issues
Elisabeth Sawerthal: Women Who Know: Female Diviners and Power in Ancient Egypt and in the Hebrew Bible
II. The Prophet Jeremiah and Ancient Egypt
Thomas Schneider: The Knowledge of Prophet Jeremiah: Introductory Remarks about Knowledge Exchange between Biblical Scholarship and Egyptology
Wolfgang Zwickel: Scribes in Judah and the Knowledge of Egypt
Katja Weiß: Knowledge Transfer and Contextualization in Jeremiah 46:13–26: What Could Jeremiah Have Seen and Heard in Saitic Egypt ?
Christoffer Theis: הֶעֱבִיר (Heʿebîr) in Jeremiah 46:17: Egyptian or Hebrew?
Stefan Jakob Wimmer: Between the Letters – Why are There No Hieratic Numerals in the Hebrew Bible? (Or: Did Jeremiah Know Hieratic?)
James K. Hoffmeier: A Survey of Some Egyptian Aspects of Political, Historic, and Toponymic Materials in the Book of Jeremiah
Aren M. Wilson-Wright: Lions Gone Wild: Echoes of the Egyptian “Destruction of Humanity” Myth in Jeremiah 51:38–39
III. Other Hebrew Prophets and Ancient Egypt
John Huddlestun: First Isaiah: A Literary Polymath between Egypt and Assyria?
John Gee: Isaiah 19 in the Context of Late Period Egypt
Danʾel Kahn: Fantastic Creatures and Where to Find Them: The Angel of YHWH, the Srrf and Flying Serpents
Christopher B. Hays: ‘Their Threshold by My Threshold’ (Ezekiel 43): Temple-Tombs and Royal Ancestor Cults in Egypt and Jerusalem
Indices
List of Contributors
- Edited by Christopher B. Hays
- Edited by John Huddlestun
- Edited by Thomas Schneider
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Die Suche nach Gottesnahe
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