Poetic Astronomy in the Ancient Near East: The Reflexes of Celestial Science in Ancient Mesopotamian, Ugaritic, and Israelite Narrative (History, Archaeology, and Culture of the Levant)

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Description

Modern science historians have normally treated the sciences of the ancient Near East as separate from historical and cultural considerations. On the same time, biblical scholars, dominated by theological concerns, have historically understood the Israelite god as separate from the flora and fauna. Cooley’s study, bringing to bear up to date models of science history at the one hand and biblical studies however, seeks to bridge a gap created by 20th-century scholarship in our understanding of ancient Near Eastern cultures by investigating the ways in which ancient authors incorporated their cultures’ celestial speculation in narrative.

In the literature of ancient Iraq, celestial divination is displayed reasonably prominently in important works such as Enuma Eliš and Erra and Išum. In ancient Ugarit as well, the sky was once observed for devotional reasons, and astral deities play important roles in stories such as the Baal Cycle and Shahar and Shalim. Even supposing the veneration of astral deities was once rejected by biblical authors, in the literature of ancient Israel the Sun, Moon, and stars are regularly depicted as active, conscious agents. In texts such as Genesis 1, Joshua 10, Judges 5, and Job 38, these celestial characters, these “sons of God,” are living, dynamic members of Yahweh’s royal entourage, willfully performing courtly, martial, and calendrical roles for their sovereign.

The synthesis offered by this book, the first of its kind because the demise of the pan-Babylonianist school more than a century ago, is about ancient science in ancient Near Eastern literature.

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