Mediating Between Heaven and Earth: Communication with the Divine in the Ancient Near East [Paperback]

This volume brings together experts in the study of ancient prayers and divination methods to analyse the variety of means by which human beings sought to communicate with their gods and by which the gods were seen to communicate with their worshippers. In a departure from previous scholarship, the volume brings together the study of prophecy, as an intuitive form of divination, with the study of technical methods of communication and other forms of institutionalised communication such as prayer. Such a format allows divine-human communication to be studied in both directions simultaneously: the means by which the divine communicates to human beings through divination, and the means by which human beings communicate with the divine through prayer. This new perspective on the study of divine-human-divine communication allows scholars to better appreciate the way in which communication and the relationship between heaven and earth was conceived in the ancient near East.

C.L. Crouchis Lecturer in Hebrew Bible at the University of Nottingham, UK.

Jonathan Stoklis Research Assistant at University College London.

Anna Elise Zerneckeis Research Associate at the Johannes Gutenberg-Universit?t Mainz.

Introduction - C.L. Crouch Jonathan St?kl and AnnaElise Zernecke
Out of Sight, Out of Mind? Dedicatory Inscriptions asCommunication with the Divine - Anne Katrine de Hemmer Gudme
The Hermeneuticsof Mesopotamian Extispicy - Theory versus Practice: Nils P. Hee?el
The Curious Case of Failed Revelation in Ludlul Bel Nemeqi: A New Suggestion for the Poem's Scholarly Purpose - Alan Lenzi
The Exclusivity of Divine Communication in Ancient Israel: False Prophecy in the Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East - Herbert Huffmon
(Intuitive) Divination, (Ethical) Demands and Diplomacy in the Ancient Near East - Jonathan St?kl
Modes of Communication with the Divine in the Hebrew Psalter - Erhard S. Gerstenberger
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