Predicting the Past in the Ancient Near East: Mantic Historiography in Ancient Mesopotamia, Judah, and the Mediterranean World

Predicting the Past in the Ancient Near East: Mantic Historiography in Ancient Mesopotamia, Judah, and the Mediterranean World
ISBN-10
193067581X
ISBN-13
9781930675810
Category
Religion
Pages
320
Language
English
Published
2012-11-06
Publisher
Society of Biblical Lit
Author
Matthew Neujahr

Description

This work provides an in-depth investigation of after-the-fact predictions in ancient Near Eastern texts from roughly 1200 B.C.E.–70 C.E. It argues that the Akkadian, Aramaic, Hebrew, and Greek works discussed are all part of a developing scribal discourse of “mantic historiography” by which scribes blend their local traditions of history writing and predictive texts to produce a new mode of historiographic expression. This in turn calls into question the use and usefulness of traditional literary categories such as “apocalypse” to analyze such works.

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