In his classic study Ancient Mesopotamia: Portrait of a Dead Civilization (rev. ed. 1977), A. Leo Oppenheim gave the section on religion the provocative title “Why a Mesopotamian Religion Should Not Be Written.” The reasons he adduced were of two orders. First, “the nature of the available evidence,” and second, “the problem of comprehension across the barriers of conceptual conditioning.” The same problems beset the study of Israelite religion. The nature of these difficulties is not such, however, as to render the entire venture completely impossible. On the contrary, the challenges of problematic and fragmentary evidence, on the one hand, and of the culture gap between them and us, on the other, are a stimulus to try and overcome them. ...I haven't seen the book, but this introductory statement is excellent.
Although the above is a "publication preview," according to the Yale University Press website it was published yesterday:
Israelite Religion
From Tribal Beginnings to Scribal Legacyby Karel van der Toorn
Series: The Anchor Yale Bible Reference Library
432 Pages, 6.12 x 9.25 in, 40 b-w illus.
Hardcover
9780300248111
Published: Tuesday, 15 Apr 2025
$40.00eBook
9780300281620
Published: Tuesday, 15 Apr 2025
$40.00Description
A panoramic, thousand-year history of Israelite religion, from the Iron Age to the birth of Judaism, by a renowned biblical scholar
From its Iron Age beginnings to its aftermath in the Roman period, Israelite religion went through significant changes and transformations. As the Israelites responded to major historical events and political realities, their collective beliefs and practices evolved over time and developed new forms, even as earlier elements of religious culture remained an active substratum.
Weaving together biblical literature, archaeology, and comparative sources, award-winning author Karel van der Toorn tells the sweeping story of how Israelite religion evolved from a tribal cult honoring the ancestors and the “god of the fathers” to a scriptural religion practiced by an ethnic minority within the Roman Empire. He demonstrates how religion was integral to nation-building as Israel transitioned from a nomadic chiefdom to a monarchical state; how religious practices changed in response to the loss of political independence; and how in the final centuries before the Common Era, as Hellenistic culture permeated the Eastern Mediterranean, Israelite religion gave rise to a variety of reading communities committed to a body of sacred scripture, with the law of Moses at its core.
Combining literary studies, anthropology, linguistics, history, and more, this book tells the fascinating story of Israelite religion as it has never been told before.
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