Early Israel

Cultic Praxis, God, and the Sôd Hypothesis

Alex Shalom Kohav

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781000777444
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

Early Israel offers the most sweeping reinterpretation of the Pentateuch since the nineteenth-century Documentary Hypothesis. Engaging a dozen-plus modern academic disciplines—from anthropology, biblical studies, Egyptology and semiotics, to linguistics, cognitive poetics and consciousness studies; from religious studies, Jewish studies, psychoanalysis and literary criticism, to mysticism studies, cognitive psychology, phenomenology and philosophy of mind—it wrests from the Pentateuch an outline of the heretofore undiscovered ancient Israelite mystical-initiatory tradition of the First Temple priests. The book effectively launches a new research area: Pentateuchal esoteric mysticism, akin to a "center" or "organizing principle" discussed in biblical theology. The recovered priestly system is discordant vis-à-vis the much-later rabbinical project. This volume appeals to a diverse academic community, from Biblical and Jewish studies to literary studies, religious studies, anthropology, and consciousness studies.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Preface: The Pretext
• Acknowledgments
• Prologue: The Subtext – When Israel Was Young
• Introduction: The Text
• Part One The Context
• Part Two The Metatext
• Part Three The Urtext
• Part Four The Code-text
• Postscript: The HORS-TEXTE: Are We Greeks? Are We Jews? Fast-Forward to Today
• Bibliography
• Index