God in Translation

by Smith, Mark S.

• ISBN13: 9780802864338
• ISBN10: 0802864333
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-06-28
• Publisher: Eerdmans Pub Co

Summary

God in Translation offers a substantial, extraordinarily broad survey of ancient attitudes toward deities, from the Late Bronze Age through ancient Israel and into the New Testament.

Author Biography

Mark S. Smith is the Skirball Professor of Bible and Ancient Near Eastern Studies at New York University. He is also the author of The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. IX
Acknowledgements	p. XI
Abbreviations and Sigla	p. XIII
A Note on Transliteration and Citation	p. XIX
Timeline: Periods, Events and Writings	p. XXI
Introduction: The Subject of Translatability of Deities	p. 1
The Rationale for this Study	p. 1
The Plan of this Book	p. 15
A Word about Academic Location	p. 23
Empires and Their Deities: Translatability in the Late Bronze Age	p. 37
Introduction to Late Bronze Age Translatability	p. 37
Treaties and Letters	p. 51
Concepts of Divine Translatability: Family, Shared Resources, Oneness	p. 76
Myths, Ritual and Prayer	p. 21
Translatability and National Gods in Ancient Israel	p. 91
Claims for the Absence of Biblical Translatability	p. 91
Evidence of Translatability in the Hebrew Bible	p. 99
Translatability and National Gods	p. 119
The Rejection of Translatability in Israel and the Impact of Mesopotamian Empires on Divinity	p. 131
Rejecting Translatability in Ancient Israel	p. 131
ôOne-Godö Worldviews in Mesopotamia and Israel and Their Lack of Translatability	p. 149
Ugarit and Israel: Case Studies of Local Responses to Empires	p. 180
ôProtecting Godö Against Translatability: Biblical Censorship in Post-Exilic Israel	p. 187
Censorship Now and Then	p. 187
Censorship in and for Israel: The Cases of Deuteronomy 32:8-9 and Genesis 14:22	p. 193
The Cultural Context of Biblical Censorship in the Post-Exilic Period	p. 216
ôThe Beautiful Essence of All the Godsö: Translatability in the Greco-Roman World	p. 243
Jan Assmann on Translatability in the Greco-Roman Period	p. 243
Genres of Greco-Roman Translatability	p. 247
The Cultural Contours of Greco-Roman Translatability	p. 260
The Biblical God in the World: Jewish and Christian Translatability and Its Limits	p. 275
Translations of God from Jewish to Non-Jewish Sources	p. 275
Jewish Horizontal Translatability	p. 300
The Christian Message: Lost in Translation?	p. 306
Epilogue: Scholars of God, Then and Now	p. 323
Jan Assmann: Contribution and Critique	p. 323
Then and Now: Scholarship of God	p. 328
Indexes
Sources	p. 341
Authors	p. 360
Subjects	p. 370
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