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Persian Royal–Judaean Elite Engagements in the Early Teispid and Achaemenid Empire
Jason Silverman presents a timely and necessary study, advancing the understanding of Achaemenid ideology and Persian Period Judaism. While the Achaemenid Persian Empire (c. 550–330 BCE) dwarfed all previous empires of the Ancient Near East in both size and longevity, the royal system that forged and preserved this civilisation remains only rudimentarily understood, as is the imperial and religious legacy bequeathed to future generations. In response to this deficit, Silverman provides a critically sophisticated and interdisciplinary model for comparative studies. While the Achaemenids rebuilt the Jerusalem temple, Judaean literature of the period reflects tensions over its Persian re-esta...
Cultural Identity in the Ancient Mediterranean
Cultural identity in the classical world is explored from a variety of angles.
The End of History and the Last King
This book examines community identity in the post-exilic temple community in Ezra-Nehemiah, and explores the possible influences that the Achaemenids, the ruling Persian dynasty, might have had on its construction. In the book, David Janzen reads Ezra-Nehemiah in dialogue with the Achaemenids' Old Persian inscriptions, as well as with other media the dynasty used, such as reliefs, seals, coins, architecture, and imperial parks. In addition, he discusses the cultural and religious background of Achaemenid thought, especially its intersections with Zoroastrian beliefs. Ezra-Nehemiah, Janzen argues, accepts Achaemenid claims for the necessity and beneficence of their hegemony. The result is tha...
Yahwism under the Achaemenid Empire
The Achaemenid period (550–330 BCE) is rightly seen as one of the most formative periods in Judaism. It is the period in which large portions of the Bible were edited and redacted and others were authored—yet no dedicated interdisciplinary study has been undertaken to present a consistent picture of this decisive time period. This book is dedicated to the study of the touchpoints between Yahwistic communities throughout the Achaemenid empire and the Iranian attributes of the empire that ruled over them for about two centuries. Its approach is fundamentally interdisciplinary. It brings together scholars of Achaemenid history, literature and religion, Iranian linguistics, historians of the Ancient Near East, archeologists, biblical scholars and Semiticists. The goal is to better understand the interchange of ideas, expressions and concepts as well as the experience of historical events between Yahwists and the empire that ruled over them for over two centuries. The book will open up a holisitic perspective on this important era to scholars of a wide variety of fields in the study of Judaism in the Ancient Near East.
The House of the Satrap
Starting in the sixth century BCE, the conquests of the Persian kings Cyrus, Cambyses, and Darius transformed the lives of humans on a continental scale, as their empire reached from the Iranian plateau to as far as eastern Europe, Central Asia, and north Africa. Beyond the imperial center, the kings' vast territory was ruled by regional royal representatives known as satraps, who managed the practicalities of running the empire. In this book, Rhyne King explores how the empire was governed at an imperial level by investigating how the satraps and the structures supporting them--their "houses"--operated across great distances. Examining satrapal houses in Egypt, Anatolia, Mesopotamia, and Central Asia, King demonstrates how these systems encouraged local self-interest and advancement even as they benefited the imperial whole. Ultimately, he argues, it was these Persian forms of transregional governance that were key in enabling their vast polity to endure for more than two centuries.
Conceptualising Divine Unions in the Greek and Near Eastern Worlds
The present volume is an interdisciplinary investigation and contextualization of the various concepts of divine union in the private and public sphere of the Greek and Near Eastern worlds. The collection focuses on human-divine interactions, intersection between kings and the divine, sexual unions with the divine, heroization and divinization rituals, divine epiphanies, mystic unions and assimilations with the divine, philosophical approaches for establishing union with the divine and theurgic unions with the divine.
The Other Gods who are
The Other Gods Who Are presents four larger case studies in Elamite-Iranian acculturation, more specifically in the realm of religion, and does so largely on the basis of the Persepolis Fortification Archive, the richnesses of which had not been fully explored for this important subject. Treating the debated 'lan' sacrifice, the Elamite-Iranian background of the pantheon, the role of the god Humban and the older background of Persian 'paradise', the monograph aims to pave the way for a different understanding of Persian identity as a cultural construct that emerged in the Iranian highlands from a large-scale dynamic in which the Elamite state as well as the Elamites of eastern Khuzestand and of the highlands played a pivotal part. The four case studies are preceded by a survey and discussion of recent developments in Neo-Elamite history, and by a long introduction into the Persepolis Fortification Archive, which can be used separately by scholars interested in this material. Annotated translations of relevant Fortification texts are given in an appendix. Indices of proper names, text passages and Elamite and other ancient words complete the volume.
Origin and Transformation of the Ancient Israelite Festival Calendar
The book focusses on the origin and transformation of the priestly festival calendar. Since the epoch-making work of Julius Wellhausen at the end of the 19th century the differences between the various ancient Israelite festival calendars have often been explained in terms of a gradual evolution, which shows an increasing historicisation, denaturalisation and ritualisation. The festivals were in Wellhausen's view gradually detached from agricultural conditions and celebrated more and more at fixed points in the year. This study tries to show that the changes in the priestly festival calendar reflect a conscious effort to adapt the ancient Israelite festival calendar to the semi-annual layout...
