The Invention of Hebrew (Traditions) - Softcover

Sanders, Seth L.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0252078357 ISBN 13: 9780252078354

Publisher: University of Illinois Press, 2011

Synopsis

The Invention of Hebrew is the first book to approach the Bible in light of recent epigraphic discoveries on the extreme antiquity of the alphabet and its use as a deliberate and meaningful choice. Hebrew was more than just a way of transmitting information; it was a vehicle of political symbolism and self-representation.

Seth L. Sanders connects the Bible's distinctive linguistic form--writing down a local spoken language--to a cultural desire to speak directly to people, summoning them to join a new community that the text itself helped call into being. Addressing the people of Israel through a vernacular literature, Hebrew texts reimagined their audience as a public. By comparing Biblical documents with related ancient texts in Hebrew, Ugaritic, and Babylonian, this book shows Hebrew's distinctiveness as a self-conscious political language. Illuminating the enduring stakes of Biblical writing, Sanders demonstrates how Hebrew assumed and promoted a source of power previously unknown in written literature: "the people" as the protagonist of religion and politics.

About this title

About the Author

Seth L. Sanders is an assistant professor of religion at Trinity College and the editor of the Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Illinois Press
• Publication date: 2011
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0252078357
• ISBN 13: 9780252078354
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 280