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Leadership, Social Memory and Judean Discourse in the Fifth - Second Centuries BCE

ID: 2128 - View Book Page - Edit In OJS

The theme of leadership played an important role in ancient Israel and its discourse. It was explored time and again through memories of proper, improper and in-between leaders and through memories of particular institutions like monarchy, priesthood, and prophethood. The ways in which this theme was shaped, reflected and explored through social memory and how, in turn, those memories played a socializing role within the community is the focus of this collection of essays.

Although the nature and limitations of kingship, both native and foreign, is a central theme of many of the essays, the volume includes discussions of both official and unofficial local leadership within an empire setting, alternatives to royal leadership like theocracy, charismatic judgeship, and Greek-style tyrants, as well as considerations of Greek political discourse on the best type of leadership.

Published: Dec 30, 2016

Book Contributors

Series

Section Chapter Authors
Preliminaries
List of contributors Diana Edelman, Ehud Ben Zvi
Abbreviations Diana Edelman, Ehud Ben Zvi
Chapter 1
Introduction Diana Edelman
Chapter 2
Memory and Political Thought in Late Persian/Early Hellenistic Yehud/Judah: Some Observations Ehud Ben Zvi
Chapter 3
Memories of Judah’s Past Leaders Utilized as Propaganda in Yehud James Bos
Chapter 4
Mystified Authority: Legitimating Leadership Through “Lost Books” Kåre Berge
Chapter 5
Israel’s King as Primus Inter Pares: The “Democratic” Re-conceptualization of Monarchy in Deut 17:14–20 Reinhard Müller
Chapter 6
The Kingdom of God in Samuel Geoffrey Parsons Miller
Chapter 7
Reconsidering Davidic Kingship in Ezekiel Christophe Nihan
Chapter 8
Imagining the Memory of an Elder: Job 29–30 Terje Stordalen
Chapter 9
At the Hands of Foreign Kings: Divine Endorsement of Foreign Rulers in the Hebrew Bible in the Memory of Persian and Hellenistic Yehud Thomas Bolin
Chapter 10
At the Crossroads of Persian and Hellenistic Ideology: The Book of Esther as "Political Theology" Beate Ego
Chapter 11
Models of Local Political Leadership in the Nehemiah Memoir Anne Fitzpatrick
Chapter 12
The Three Constitutions in Greek Political Thought Lynette Mitchell
Chapter 13
Monarchy, Oligarchy, and Democracy in the Constitutional Debate in Herodotus and in 1 Samuel 8 Wolfgang Oswald
Chapter 14
Remembering Samson in a Hellenized Jewish Context (Judges 13–16) Diana Edelman
Chapter 15
Judith Maccabee? On Leadership, Resistance, and the Great Deeds of Little People Anne-Mareike Schol-Wetter
End Matter
Index of Ancient Sources Diana Edelman, Ehud Ben Zvi
Author Index Diana Edelman, Ehud Ben Zvi

Reviews

The volume ... is for the attention of all concerned with the theme of "dominion" in the Old Testament and its Greek-Hellenistic context.
Zeitschrift für alttestamentliche Wissenschaft

Achieves its overall goal of opening up discussion of Judaean political thought of the period and all those wishing to explore this topic will need to interact with these papers.
Journal of Semitic Studies

There is much thoughtful material here.
Society for Old Testament Study Book List

The essays of Bos, Berge, and Fitzpatrick-McKinley are the primary reasons for reading this volume and provide the broadest perspective on the research question of the construction and remembering of political leadership in Judaea in the late Persian and early Hellenistic periods. Many of the other essays have technical details useful for the study of a specific biblical book or theme.
Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research