Research Catalog

Title

Sea and the combat myth : North west semitic political mythology in the Hebrew Bible / Joanna Töyräänvuori.

Author

Töyräänvuori, Joanna

Publication

• Münster : Ugarit-Verlag, 2018.
• ©2018

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Description

xiv, 622 pages; 25 cm.

Summary

Publisher's description: Sea and the Combat Myth examines the political use of the ancient North West Semitic myth of divine combat between the Storm-God and the Sea. The myth originated with the rise of the Sargonic Empire and was disseminated across ancient Near Eastern polities during the Amorite Kingdom period. Vestiges of the myth have also been retained in the Hebrew Bible: a myth of symbolic combat between the Storm-God and the Sea was likely used as a foundational myth by the mostly polytheistic Pre-Exilic kingship in Palestine. The study demonstrates how the myth was used in ancient North West Semitic societies to resolve the crisis of monarchy through appeal to numinous legitimacy, and how reading a selection of Biblical texts in the framework of the tradition confirms the use of the myth in the same context in the emergent Palestinian kingdoms of the Iron Age.

Series Statement

Alter Orient und Altes Testament ; Band 457

Uniform Title

Alter Orient und Altes Testament ; Bd. 457.

Subjects

• Bible > Old Testament > Sources
• Theomachy
• Mythology, Assyro-Babylonian
• Mythology, Semitic

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (pages [537]-597) and index.

Contents

1. Introduction. Research questions and aims of the study -- Background and theoretical framework -- The three-pronged structure of the study -- Texts omitted from examination -- Practical minutiae -- 2. Historical survey of research. North West Semitic combat myth -- North West Semitic kingship -- North West Semitic poetry -- 3. On methods. Methodology employed in the study -- From conflict myth to combat myth: toward a definition of the North West Semitic myth of divine combat -- 4. The weapons with which I attacked the sea: the Sea of Combat Myth at Mari. The Amorite myth of divine combat -- The campaign of Yahdun-Lim and the mythological legitimation of the Mari monarchy -- Zimri-Lim and the weapons of the Storm-God of Aleppo -- The combat myth and ordeal by river -- Summary and discussion -- 5. Your servant is Baal, o sea: the Sea of Combat Myth in Ugarit. The Sea of Combat Myth in the Baal cycle -- Yamm in other texts from Ugarit -- The Sea of Combat Myth and iconography from Ugarit -- North West Semitic conceptions in the Hebrew Bible: the great waters and the enthronement of the Divinity -- Summary and discussion -- 6. He shall have dominion from sea to sea: kingship and the sea in the broader Ancient Near East -- Introduction and general remarks -- And he went to the sea for battle: the sea in Syrian and Anatolian myths -- The Sea of Combat Myth in other Ancient North West Semitic textual sources -- The sea and monarchic legitimation in Ancient Assyria and Babylonia -- The North West Semitic combat myth in Egyptian sources -- Conclusions -- 7. Summary and concluding essay.

ISBN

• 3868352791
• 9783868352795

OCLC

• on1077496317
• 1077496317
• SCSB-9229863

Owning Institutions

Columbia University Libraries