Rituals and ritual theory in ancient Israel
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Rituals and ritual theory in ancient Israel
(The Brill reference library of ancient Judaism, v. 10)
Brill, 2003
Available at 2 libraries
  Aomori
  Iwate
  Miyagi
  Akita
  Yamagata
  Fukushima
  Ibaraki
  Tochigi
  Gunma
  Saitama
  Chiba
  Tokyo
  Kanagawa
  Niigata
  Toyama
  Ishikawa
  Fukui
  Yamanashi
  Nagano
  Gifu
  Shizuoka
  Aichi
  Mie
  Shiga
  Kyoto
  Osaka
  Hyogo
  Nara
  Wakayama
  Tottori
  Shimane
  Okayama
  Hiroshima
  Yamaguchi
  Tokushima
  Kagawa
  Ehime
  Kochi
  Fukuoka
  Saga
  Nagasaki
  Kumamoto
  Oita
  Miyazaki
  Kagoshima
  Okinawa
  Korea
  China
  Thailand
  United Kingdom
  Germany
  Switzerland
  France
  Belgium
  Netherlands
  Sweden
  Norway
  United States of America
Note
Bibliography: p. [267]-274
Description and Table of Contents
Description
This book, in many ways the first of its kind, addresses the issue of rituals and their embedded ritual theory, in the religion of ancient Israel. The leading idea of the book is that rituals are a autonomous form of expression of the human mind. The human mind expresses itself in rituals, as it does in language, the arts, and mathematics. Rituals are not performative translations of symbols and ideas, and in religion, of any kind of theology. Theology does not explain how rituals are done and how they accomplish what they claim to do.
The book begins with a general discussion of what rituals are, and argues that the ritual theory of each ritual is not in any general theory of ritual but embedded in the ritual act itself. Every ritual is structured in such a way that its details create the behavioural logic that makes ritual work. The difference is explored between the early and institutionalised phases of the religion of ancient Israel. Here the role of the economic ethos is the focus of the discussion. The book explores the links between myth and rituals, arguing that the connectedness with ritual endows a story with a myth essence. Detailed discussions of various rituals exemplify the major theoretical discourse.
The book is of interest to scholars in the areas of Halakhah (law and ritual), religious studies, and the anthropology of religion.
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