Biblical and Pagan SocietiesUniversity of Pennsylvania Press, 2001 - 168 من الصفحات In the ancient Near East, the art of influencing the natural course of events by means of spells and other ritual forms was universal. The social and political role of magic is apparent, too, in the competition to achieve precedence over rival systems of ritual practice and belief. Within a region filled with petty kingdoms competing for power, the Jews of ancient Palestine maintained control over adherents by developing distinct ritual practices and condemning as heretical those of nearby cults. Texts from Mesopotamia reveal a striking number of incantations, rituals, and medical recipes against witchcraft, attesting to a profound fear of being bewitched. Magical rituals were also used to maintain harmony between the human and divine realms. The roots of European witchcraft and magic lie in Hebrew and other ancient Near Eastern cultures and in the Celtic, Nordic, and Germanic traditions of the continent. For two millennia, European folklore and ritual have been imbued with the belief in the supernatural, yielding a rich trove of histories and images. Witchcraft and Magic in Europe combines the traditional approaches of political, legal, and social historians with a critical synthesis of cultural anthropology, historical psychology, and gender studies. The series, complete in six volumes, provides a modern, scholarly survey of the supernatural beliefs of Europeans from ancient times to the present day. Each volume of this ambitious six-volume series contains the work of distinguished scholars chosen for their expertise in a particular era or region. |
من داخل الكتاب
النتائج 1-3 من 8
... oracle could give the answer , as in the case above where figurines were presented to a pig and its attitudes decided whether the impotence was due to witchcraft or the ' Hand of Ištar ' . The purpose of the various rituals employed by ...
... oracle dependent on the verbal responses of the Philistines he and his armour - bearer are preparing to attack ( ' If they say to us , " Wait until we come to you " , then we will stand still in our place and we will not go up to them ...
... Oracle , 70-1 , 116 , 120 , 124 , 126 , 128–9 , 131-4 , 144 Ordeal , 142 Patriarch , 103 83 Mari , 126 , 134 Mars , 89 Masada , 112 Medes , 8 Medicine , xii , 43 , 45 , 71 , 87 , 138 Megiddo , 106 Mercury , 90 Merenptah , 105 ...