Further Details

Title: The Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel
Condition: New
Author: Benjamin D. Sommer
Format: Paperback
EAN: 9781107422261
ISBN: 9781107422261
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Genre: Philosophy & Spirituality
Release Date: 17/01/2011
Description: Sommer utilizes a lost ancient Near Eastern perception of divinity according to which a god has more than one body and fluid, unbounded selves. Though the dominant strains of biblical religion rejected it, a monotheistic version of this theological intuition is found in some biblical texts. Later Jewish and Christian thinkers inherited this ancient way of thinking; ideas such as the sefirot in Kabbalah and the trinity in Christianity represent a late version of this theology. This book forces us to rethink the distinction between monotheism and polytheism, as this notion of divine fluidity is found in both polytheistic cultures (Babylonia, Assyria, Canaan) and monotheistic ones (biblical religion, Jewish mysticism, Christianity), whereas it is absent in some polytheistic cultures (classical Greece). The Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel has important repercussions not only for biblical scholarship and comparative religion but for Jewish-Christian dialogue.
Language: English
Country/Region of Manufacture: GB
Item Height: 226mm
Item Length: 152mm
Item Width: 23mm
Item Weight: 520g
Release Year: 2011

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