Michael Hundley | University of Memphis (original) (raw)

Books by Michael Hundley

Cambridge University Press, 2022

In this study, Michael Hundley explores the diverse deities of ancient Near Eastern and biblical ... more In this study, Michael Hundley explores the diverse deities of ancient Near Eastern and biblical literature, from deified doors and diseases to the masters of the universe. Using data from Mesopotamia, Hittite Anatolia, Egypt, the Levant, and non-priestly Genesis and Exodus, Hundley explains their context-specific approach to deity, which produces complex and seemingly contradictory portraits. He suggests that ancient deities gained prominence primarily by co-opting the attributes of other deities, rather than by denying their existence or inventing new powers. He demonstrates that the primary difference between biblical and ancient Near Eastern presentations lies in their rhetorical goals, not their conceptions of gods. While others promote divine supremacy, Genesis and Exodus promote exclusive worship. Hundley argues that this monolatry redefined the biblical divine sphere and paved the way for the later development of monotheism and monotheistic explanations of evil.

Gods In Dwellings examines temples and the gods who inhabit them in ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, H... more Gods In Dwellings examines temples and the gods who inhabit them in ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Hittite Anatolia, and Syria-Palestine. It is thus concerned with official religion, with exploring the interface between human and divine in the major temples of the ancient Near East (ANE). Rather than offering an exhaustive survey of the data, the study explores the common themes in each region and offers a wide interpretive lens through which to view them. More particularly, this project examines such issues as: 1) ANE perceptions of the divine; 2) what temple structure communicates, how it was understood to function, and its ideology; 3) how to install the divine presence in a temple, often in the form of a cult image; 4) the relationship between deity and image(s); 5) how a god's presence in the temple, particularly in the cult statue, is related to his or her divine essence and presence elsewhere; and 6) how humanity serves the deity in order to ensure continued presence.

Michael B. Hundley examines the Priestly system designed to keep heaven on earth - more specifica... more Michael B. Hundley examines the Priestly system designed to keep heaven on earth - more specifically, to secure and safeguard the divine presence at the heart of the Israelite community through a comprehensive analysis of its constituent parts. His study examines how the Priestly writers describe the nature of divine presence, elicit that presence and prepare for its arrival, and maintain it through regular service and damage control rites. Rather than comparing individual Priestly rites in isolation from their surrounding contexts, his work compares the Priestly system with various ancient Near Eastern systems (Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Hittite, and Syro-Palestinian). Using a multifaceted approach, Hundley reveals the genius of the Priestly writers lies not in their total originality but in their ability to co-opt elements present in the surrounding cultures and adapt them to serve their own rhetorical purposes.

Papers by Michael Hundley

Cambridge Companion to Law and the Old Testament (ed. B. Wells; Cambridge: CUP), 158-178, 2024

The Oxford Handbook of Egypt and the Hebrew Bible (ed. S. Hollis), 2024

Ancient Egyptians considered contact with the divine essential for prosperity, yet such contact o... more Ancient Egyptians considered contact with the divine essential for prosperity, yet such contact often proved elusive. This chapter surveys their solution, the temples and cult images that concretized divine presence and the rituals that constituted divine service. It includes an outline of the standard Egyptian temple, its decoration, and its ideology, followed by an examination of divine presence and service. It concludes by situating Egyptian temples alongside those of its neighbors in Syria-Palestine, including a discussion of the temple and tabernacle in the Hebrew Bible.

Journal of Near Eastern Studies 82 (1): 119-132, 2023

This article presents a case study in occasional deification by exploring divinized instruments i... more This article presents a case study in occasional deification by exploring divinized instruments in Mesopotamia, followed by a preliminary investigation of the Ugaritian and biblical data in light of the results. Rather than deify instruments by association or because of some intrinsic merit, I argue that their divinization was more pragmatically driven. Mesopotamians, and by extension Ugaritians, deified instruments to augment ritual efficacy in cases where the stakes were particularly high. While the Hebrew Bible does not include divinized instruments, it too employs music in the same ways, to praise and pacify the deity. In each context, music moves the deity, and interpreters use various rhetorical strategies to make its affective powers more potent. By contrast, the Priestly texts reject cultic music, thereby removing the affective component from the cult.

Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, 2024

Journal of Hebrew Scriptures, 2022

“Magic” is a term that continues to feature in popular and scholarly circles, yet scholars contin... more “Magic” is a term that continues to feature in popular and scholarly circles, yet scholars continue to disagree vehemently about its definition and utility. This article uses the various definitions of magic as lenses through which to compare the ritual texts of the Priestly Pentateuch, ancient Egypt, and ancient Mesopotamia. The results offered illumine both the texts and the scholars who interpret them. Regardless of the definition employed, the biblical and other ANE ritual texts are quite similar, leading to the conclusion that magic should not be used as a dividing line between biblical Priestly and other ANE ritual texts.

The Ancient Near East Today, 2018

The Oxford Handbook of Ritual and Worship (ed. S. Balentine; Oxford, 2020)., 2020

This article addresses sacred and common spaces in the ancient Near East (ANE) with a special foc... more This article addresses sacred and common spaces in the ancient Near East (ANE) with a special focus on biblical Israel. It considers temples and other sacred spaces in the ANE before moving to sacred spaces in the Hebrew Bible: altars, standing stones, the tabernacle, the temple and other sacred spaces. It will conclude by tracing the evolution of sacred spaces in Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

Huffington Post, 2017

With Christianity and Islam as the two dominant religions in today’s world, most assume that, if ... more With Christianity and Islam as the two dominant religions in today’s world, most assume that, if there is a god, there is only one. However, the vast majority of world religions today believe in multiple gods. Even in the ancient Middle East, the world from which these two major religions and Judaism emerged, the belief in monotheism was a relative newcomer to the religious landscape. For example, the Hittites of Anatolia (modern Turkey) proudly boasted of their three thousand gods. How did this idea of monotheism emerge against the grain and gain such momentum?

Oxford Bibliographies in Biblical Studies, 2017

Temples were nearly ubiquitous across the ancient Near East. Rather than serving as a gathering p... more Temples were nearly ubiquitous across the ancient Near East. Rather than serving as a gathering place for a worshipping congregation, a temple served as a terrestrial divine abode. In it, the god(s) lived amid society, yet carefully sequestered from it behind walls and doors. While primarily a residence, the temple also granted people limited access, usually for the purpose of divine service. The people believed that gods dwelt outside of the realm of human experience. Temples bridged the gap between human and divine, allowing regulated access to the deity, usually present in the form of a cult statue, and giving people the opportunity to influence the gods. Through this mutually beneficial interchange, the gods received the service they desired, while the people hoped their service would elicit divine protection and blessing. Protection and blessing, though, were conditional. The gods would remain and stay favorably disposed only if they were satisfied with their accommodation and service. Temples then, at least in theory, were lavishly and fastidiously constructed and maintained in order to keep the gods happy. This article focuses on the major temples, especially those from 1500–500 BCE, in Mesopotamia, Egypt, Hittite Anatolia, and Syria-Palestine. The article also focuses on the structure and ideology of the temples, not the rituals performed within them. For the most part, biblical and Israelite references will be kept to a minimum, as they are numerous enough to warrant their own article. Too numerous to include, archaeological reports generally have been excluded, yet they are referenced in the works cited and may be found with a Google web search.

Catholic Biblical Quarterly, 2017

The golden calf episode in Exodus is both popular and perplexing. While it has a shared ancient N... more The golden calf episode in Exodus is both popular and perplexing. While it has a shared ancient Near Eastern heritage of understanding divine presence, it chooses to undermine that heritage to promote its particular agenda. This study clarifies the text by situating it more firmly in its ancient Near Eastern context and by addressing the biblical adaptations that emerge when we address each of the chapter’s distinct voices. It also considers the importance of perspective—what each character sees and how their vision affects their viewpoint—and the importance of divine visibility both within Exodus 32 and in the larger non-Priestly narrative.

Journal of Theological Studies, 2016

Angels are and have always been a popular topic. Nonetheless, much confusion remains in popular ... more Angels are and have always been a popular topic. Nonetheless, much confusion remains in popular and even scholarly literature. The present study aims to provide clarity about angels (מלאכים, literally ‘messengers’) in Genesis and Exodus by situating the texts in their ancient Near Eastern contexts and examining how they adapt the ideas of those contexts to fit their own unique theological agenda. The resulting portrait is derived from but clearly distinct from its ancient Near Eastern analogs.

Altorientalische Forschungen, 2014

Building on an earlier article on Mesopotamian conceptions of the divine (Hundley 2013a), this pi... more Building on an earlier article on Mesopotamian conceptions of the divine (Hundley 2013a), this piece turns to the complex world of Hittite deities and offers a synthetic analysis with Mesopotamia as a conversation partner. While many commonalities emerge, the Hittite divine world is also distinct in important ways. Most notably, while Mesopotamian gods, especially Marduk and Assur and before them Enlil and Ninurta, tend to collect attributes, the Hittites themselves collect gods, proudly boasting of the thousand gods of Ḫatti. Likewise, Hittite deities tend to overlap without redundancy, such that each overlapping (weather) god is an independent actor with an essential role to play, whose absence could signal the dissolution of order. The article also posits various modern analogs like franchises, which although imperfect, help the modern mind to grasp the ancient complexity.

Religion Compass 9 (2015): 203-215

This article addresses ancient Near Eastern conceptions of divine presence in the realm of the te... more This article addresses ancient Near Eastern conceptions of divine presence in the realm of the temple, considering evidence from Egypt, Mesopotamia, Hittite Anatolia and Syria-Palestine. It analyzes the perceived religious function of ancient Near Eastern temples, cult images, the installation and maintenance of divine presence, as well as the complicated relationship between the deity and its cult image and between a deity’s various cult images.

Text, Time, and Temple: Literary, Historical and Ritual Studies in Leviticus (ed. L. Trevaskis, F. Landy and B. Bibb; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix), 2014

Conceptions of the divine world in the ancient Near East (ANE) and the Hebrew Bible have attracte... more Conceptions of the divine world in the ancient Near East (ANE) and the Hebrew Bible have attracted increased attention in recent years. 1 In particular, scholars have reexamined the most basic question-what is a god?-in Mesopotamia, Syria-Palestine and the Hebrew Bible in an attempt to better understand ancient conceptions of the divine world. 2 Several have also (re)asserted the divine corporeality in the Hebrew Bible and the ANE. 3 The present paper addresses an integral aspect of the new research and indeed of 1. I would like to thank Francis Landy for the invitation to contribute an essay to this volume and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation for giving me the time and resources to write it.

Remembering and Forgetting in Early Second Judah (ed. E. Ben-Zvi and C. Levin; FAT 85; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck), 2012

Cambridge University Press, 2022

In this study, Michael Hundley explores the diverse deities of ancient Near Eastern and biblical ... more In this study, Michael Hundley explores the diverse deities of ancient Near Eastern and biblical literature, from deified doors and diseases to the masters of the universe. Using data from Mesopotamia, Hittite Anatolia, Egypt, the Levant, and non-priestly Genesis and Exodus, Hundley explains their context-specific approach to deity, which produces complex and seemingly contradictory portraits. He suggests that ancient deities gained prominence primarily by co-opting the attributes of other deities, rather than by denying their existence or inventing new powers. He demonstrates that the primary difference between biblical and ancient Near Eastern presentations lies in their rhetorical goals, not their conceptions of gods. While others promote divine supremacy, Genesis and Exodus promote exclusive worship. Hundley argues that this monolatry redefined the biblical divine sphere and paved the way for the later development of monotheism and monotheistic explanations of evil.

Gods In Dwellings examines temples and the gods who inhabit them in ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, H... more Gods In Dwellings examines temples and the gods who inhabit them in ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Hittite Anatolia, and Syria-Palestine. It is thus concerned with official religion, with exploring the interface between human and divine in the major temples of the ancient Near East (ANE). Rather than offering an exhaustive survey of the data, the study explores the common themes in each region and offers a wide interpretive lens through which to view them. More particularly, this project examines such issues as: 1) ANE perceptions of the divine; 2) what temple structure communicates, how it was understood to function, and its ideology; 3) how to install the divine presence in a temple, often in the form of a cult image; 4) the relationship between deity and image(s); 5) how a god's presence in the temple, particularly in the cult statue, is related to his or her divine essence and presence elsewhere; and 6) how humanity serves the deity in order to ensure continued presence.

Michael B. Hundley examines the Priestly system designed to keep heaven on earth - more specifica... more Michael B. Hundley examines the Priestly system designed to keep heaven on earth - more specifically, to secure and safeguard the divine presence at the heart of the Israelite community through a comprehensive analysis of its constituent parts. His study examines how the Priestly writers describe the nature of divine presence, elicit that presence and prepare for its arrival, and maintain it through regular service and damage control rites. Rather than comparing individual Priestly rites in isolation from their surrounding contexts, his work compares the Priestly system with various ancient Near Eastern systems (Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Hittite, and Syro-Palestinian). Using a multifaceted approach, Hundley reveals the genius of the Priestly writers lies not in their total originality but in their ability to co-opt elements present in the surrounding cultures and adapt them to serve their own rhetorical purposes.

Cambridge Companion to Law and the Old Testament (ed. B. Wells; Cambridge: CUP), 158-178, 2024

The Oxford Handbook of Egypt and the Hebrew Bible (ed. S. Hollis), 2024

Ancient Egyptians considered contact with the divine essential for prosperity, yet such contact o... more Ancient Egyptians considered contact with the divine essential for prosperity, yet such contact often proved elusive. This chapter surveys their solution, the temples and cult images that concretized divine presence and the rituals that constituted divine service. It includes an outline of the standard Egyptian temple, its decoration, and its ideology, followed by an examination of divine presence and service. It concludes by situating Egyptian temples alongside those of its neighbors in Syria-Palestine, including a discussion of the temple and tabernacle in the Hebrew Bible.

Journal of Near Eastern Studies 82 (1): 119-132, 2023

This article presents a case study in occasional deification by exploring divinized instruments i... more This article presents a case study in occasional deification by exploring divinized instruments in Mesopotamia, followed by a preliminary investigation of the Ugaritian and biblical data in light of the results. Rather than deify instruments by association or because of some intrinsic merit, I argue that their divinization was more pragmatically driven. Mesopotamians, and by extension Ugaritians, deified instruments to augment ritual efficacy in cases where the stakes were particularly high. While the Hebrew Bible does not include divinized instruments, it too employs music in the same ways, to praise and pacify the deity. In each context, music moves the deity, and interpreters use various rhetorical strategies to make its affective powers more potent. By contrast, the Priestly texts reject cultic music, thereby removing the affective component from the cult.

Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, 2024

Journal of Hebrew Scriptures, 2022

“Magic” is a term that continues to feature in popular and scholarly circles, yet scholars contin... more “Magic” is a term that continues to feature in popular and scholarly circles, yet scholars continue to disagree vehemently about its definition and utility. This article uses the various definitions of magic as lenses through which to compare the ritual texts of the Priestly Pentateuch, ancient Egypt, and ancient Mesopotamia. The results offered illumine both the texts and the scholars who interpret them. Regardless of the definition employed, the biblical and other ANE ritual texts are quite similar, leading to the conclusion that magic should not be used as a dividing line between biblical Priestly and other ANE ritual texts.

The Ancient Near East Today, 2018

The Oxford Handbook of Ritual and Worship (ed. S. Balentine; Oxford, 2020)., 2020

This article addresses sacred and common spaces in the ancient Near East (ANE) with a special foc... more This article addresses sacred and common spaces in the ancient Near East (ANE) with a special focus on biblical Israel. It considers temples and other sacred spaces in the ANE before moving to sacred spaces in the Hebrew Bible: altars, standing stones, the tabernacle, the temple and other sacred spaces. It will conclude by tracing the evolution of sacred spaces in Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

Huffington Post, 2017

With Christianity and Islam as the two dominant religions in today’s world, most assume that, if ... more With Christianity and Islam as the two dominant religions in today’s world, most assume that, if there is a god, there is only one. However, the vast majority of world religions today believe in multiple gods. Even in the ancient Middle East, the world from which these two major religions and Judaism emerged, the belief in monotheism was a relative newcomer to the religious landscape. For example, the Hittites of Anatolia (modern Turkey) proudly boasted of their three thousand gods. How did this idea of monotheism emerge against the grain and gain such momentum?

Oxford Bibliographies in Biblical Studies, 2017

Temples were nearly ubiquitous across the ancient Near East. Rather than serving as a gathering p... more Temples were nearly ubiquitous across the ancient Near East. Rather than serving as a gathering place for a worshipping congregation, a temple served as a terrestrial divine abode. In it, the god(s) lived amid society, yet carefully sequestered from it behind walls and doors. While primarily a residence, the temple also granted people limited access, usually for the purpose of divine service. The people believed that gods dwelt outside of the realm of human experience. Temples bridged the gap between human and divine, allowing regulated access to the deity, usually present in the form of a cult statue, and giving people the opportunity to influence the gods. Through this mutually beneficial interchange, the gods received the service they desired, while the people hoped their service would elicit divine protection and blessing. Protection and blessing, though, were conditional. The gods would remain and stay favorably disposed only if they were satisfied with their accommodation and service. Temples then, at least in theory, were lavishly and fastidiously constructed and maintained in order to keep the gods happy. This article focuses on the major temples, especially those from 1500–500 BCE, in Mesopotamia, Egypt, Hittite Anatolia, and Syria-Palestine. The article also focuses on the structure and ideology of the temples, not the rituals performed within them. For the most part, biblical and Israelite references will be kept to a minimum, as they are numerous enough to warrant their own article. Too numerous to include, archaeological reports generally have been excluded, yet they are referenced in the works cited and may be found with a Google web search.

Catholic Biblical Quarterly, 2017

The golden calf episode in Exodus is both popular and perplexing. While it has a shared ancient N... more The golden calf episode in Exodus is both popular and perplexing. While it has a shared ancient Near Eastern heritage of understanding divine presence, it chooses to undermine that heritage to promote its particular agenda. This study clarifies the text by situating it more firmly in its ancient Near Eastern context and by addressing the biblical adaptations that emerge when we address each of the chapter’s distinct voices. It also considers the importance of perspective—what each character sees and how their vision affects their viewpoint—and the importance of divine visibility both within Exodus 32 and in the larger non-Priestly narrative.

Journal of Theological Studies, 2016

Angels are and have always been a popular topic. Nonetheless, much confusion remains in popular ... more Angels are and have always been a popular topic. Nonetheless, much confusion remains in popular and even scholarly literature. The present study aims to provide clarity about angels (מלאכים, literally ‘messengers’) in Genesis and Exodus by situating the texts in their ancient Near Eastern contexts and examining how they adapt the ideas of those contexts to fit their own unique theological agenda. The resulting portrait is derived from but clearly distinct from its ancient Near Eastern analogs.

Altorientalische Forschungen, 2014

Building on an earlier article on Mesopotamian conceptions of the divine (Hundley 2013a), this pi... more Building on an earlier article on Mesopotamian conceptions of the divine (Hundley 2013a), this piece turns to the complex world of Hittite deities and offers a synthetic analysis with Mesopotamia as a conversation partner. While many commonalities emerge, the Hittite divine world is also distinct in important ways. Most notably, while Mesopotamian gods, especially Marduk and Assur and before them Enlil and Ninurta, tend to collect attributes, the Hittites themselves collect gods, proudly boasting of the thousand gods of Ḫatti. Likewise, Hittite deities tend to overlap without redundancy, such that each overlapping (weather) god is an independent actor with an essential role to play, whose absence could signal the dissolution of order. The article also posits various modern analogs like franchises, which although imperfect, help the modern mind to grasp the ancient complexity.

Religion Compass 9 (2015): 203-215

This article addresses ancient Near Eastern conceptions of divine presence in the realm of the te... more This article addresses ancient Near Eastern conceptions of divine presence in the realm of the temple, considering evidence from Egypt, Mesopotamia, Hittite Anatolia and Syria-Palestine. It analyzes the perceived religious function of ancient Near Eastern temples, cult images, the installation and maintenance of divine presence, as well as the complicated relationship between the deity and its cult image and between a deity’s various cult images.

Text, Time, and Temple: Literary, Historical and Ritual Studies in Leviticus (ed. L. Trevaskis, F. Landy and B. Bibb; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix), 2014

Conceptions of the divine world in the ancient Near East (ANE) and the Hebrew Bible have attracte... more Conceptions of the divine world in the ancient Near East (ANE) and the Hebrew Bible have attracted increased attention in recent years. 1 In particular, scholars have reexamined the most basic question-what is a god?-in Mesopotamia, Syria-Palestine and the Hebrew Bible in an attempt to better understand ancient conceptions of the divine world. 2 Several have also (re)asserted the divine corporeality in the Hebrew Bible and the ANE. 3 The present paper addresses an integral aspect of the new research and indeed of 1. I would like to thank Francis Landy for the invitation to contribute an essay to this volume and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation for giving me the time and resources to write it.

Remembering and Forgetting in Early Second Judah (ed. E. Ben-Zvi and C. Levin; FAT 85; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck), 2012

Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, Jan 1, 2011

Much ink has been spilled on the examination of Mesopotamian conceptions of the divine in the pas... more Much ink has been spilled on the examination of Mesopotamian conceptions of the divine in the past, and the topic has received renewed attention in the present. The following article offers yet another synthetic analysis of the Mesopotamian divine sphere, amassing in one place a vast array of data and the scholarly assessments of that data. More particularly, after examining what constitutes a god in ancient Mesopotamia and the essential and characteristic qualities of Mesopotamian deities, the article attempts to sort the divine sphere, focusing on the relationship between the various beings that populate the divine world and between a single deity and its various aspects. However, although synthetic, the present contribution offers several new insights. Most prominently, it posits the concept of divine constellations as a model for understanding Mesopotamian deities, in which the major Mesopotamian deities are presented as a constellation of aspects that may be treated as (semi-)independent beings or as a unity depending on the context.

Vetus Testamentum, Jan 1, 2009

Advocates of name theology have long argued that Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomistic History relo... more Advocates of name theology have long argued that Deuteronomy and the Deuteronomistic History relocate YHWH from the temple to heaven, putting the name ‫)שׁם(‬ in his place, as either a forwarding station for prayer or some form of substitute presence. In recent years, this position has come under particular scrutiny. Rather than rejecting the traditional theory outright, the present article posits an important corrective through a reexamination of the name language in context. In sum, the Deuteronomistic innovation lies not in absenting God from earth, but in leaving the exact nature and extent of his presence on earth ambiguous.

Review of Biblical Literature , 2024

Review of Biblical Literature, 2024

According to Text and Ritual in the Pentateuch, the relationship between ritual text and practice... more According to Text and Ritual in the Pentateuch, the relationship between ritual text and practice is, in a word, complicated. The volume examines the topic from multiple perspectives and multiple corpora beyond the Pentateuch from the ancient Mediterranean and West Asia. Rather than positing a single answer, the contributions are eclectic, demonstrating both the complexity of the material and the need for further investigation.

Review of Biblical Literature, 2023

Review of Biblical Literature, 2022

In the Shadow of Empire offers a reassessment of the long sixth century, loosely dated from the c... more In the Shadow of Empire offers a reassessment of the long sixth century, loosely dated from the collapse of Neo-Assyria in the 620s BCE to the consolidation of Persian rule under Darius. It was a period of monumental change, the end of a long cycle of empires forming and dissolving into smaller states and the beginning of a new reality in which empire followed empire until the twentieth century CE. These monumental changes in turn had a profound effect on the Bible. Rather than seeking to be comprehensive, the individual essays in this collection examine various pertinent issues.

Review of Biblical Literature, 2017

Review of Biblical Literature, 2017

Review of Biblical Literature, 2015

With the nature and development of YHWH, the Israelite god, a hot topic in biblical studies, it i... more With the nature and development of YHWH, the Israelite god, a hot topic in biblical studies, it is surprising that YHWH's kingship has received relatively little attention. In YHWH Is King, a revised dissertation submitted to the University of Toronto in 2012, Shawn W. Flynn seeks to fill this gap by identifying stages of YHWH's kingship and the probable motivation and context for change.

Review of Biblical Literature, 2015

Review of Biblical Literature, 2015

Journal of Hebrew Scriptures, 2014

Review of Biblical Literature, 2013

Journal of Hebrew Scriptures, 2013

In this lightly revised Ph.D. dissertation from Uppsala University, von Heijne offers an ambitiou... more In this lightly revised Ph.D. dissertation from Uppsala University, von Heijne offers an ambitious and well-executed analysis of early Jewish interpretations of the angel of YHWH in Genesis. Her work joins a crowded field on angelology and the angel ("messenger") of YHWH in particular, yet succeeds in breaking new ground by focusing primarily on early interpretations, rather than the biblical texts themselves.

Review of Biblical Literature , 2012

Review of Biblical Literature , 2012

Review of Biblical Literature, 2012