Aspects of religion and culture in Judah in the Iron II period: A biblical and archaeological approach to cult in relationship to kinship, kingship, and land

摘要

Recent archaeological discoveries which illuminate the religion of ancient Judah provide the immediate background for the current work. The fragmented nature of the reports of these discoveries undergird the necessity for bringing all relevant archaeological material into a systematic study. In addition, the current work combines relevant archaeological and biblical material in an interactive way to explain the development of the cult of Judah in the Iron II period within its larger cultural context.;Archaeological data include relevant aspects of cultic objects, architecture, inscriptions, and onomastic evidence. Information devired from survey data, such as demographic and settlement trends, also contribute to the archaeological discussions. Biblical materials include primarily the works of Kings, Chronicles, and the pre-exilic prophets. Relevant material from the Pentateuch and the Psalms also receive due attention.;Recent debates over archaeological method require an assessment of the frameworks of traditional Biblical Archaeology, the "New Archeology," and the influence of anthropological and sociological concerns within the field of archaeology. Traditional Biblical Archaeology emphasized history and chronology to such an extent that it lost its opportunity to set religion within a broader cultural context. The current work retains the traditional emphases of Biblical Archaeology, i.e. its integrative nature and its relation to historical and biblical studies, but renews its interest in culture and cultural development.;Kinship, kingship, and land form three cultural sub-systems of ancient Israel which played major roles in the development of the cult.;Kingship in ancient Israel arose after a lengthy and complex period during which the people of Israel had already formed traditional leadership roles and sedentary lifeways. Though Israel remained an agrarian society, the process of social stratification and surplus extraction of goods brought about the opportunity for a more complex and inclusive national structure. Kingship and its royal cult was one major role of this process. In the early period of the Monarchy, the king and the royal court assumed a position of shared power with the more traditional structures of society. From the time of Hezekiah, Jerusalem assumed a much larger role in the life of the nation. The process culminated in the complete centralization of society, including the cult, under Josiah.;Kinship and land formed two cultural sub-systems in early Israel. The attachment to land made the Israelite population indigenous by the time of the rise of the Monarchy. The web of kinship structures, knit closely to property, formed the basis of resistance toward the centralizing tendencies of a national structure. The rural population and its rural cult, most identified with the "high places," remained a legitimate social and religious structure in Israel until its fall and in Judah until the time of Hezekiah.;Thus, the Iron II period witnessed a dramatic transformation of the Israelite culture. The period began with a rural and indigenous people attached significantly to family and land who possessed a distributive and broadly defined cult. The period culminated with an urban and highly centralized society detached significantly from lineage structures and land, possessing a cult approaching a normative status. These developments have serious implications for past studies which treat religion and culture in ancient Israel as monolithic entities. (Abstract shortened by UMI.).