Women''s Divination in Biblical Literature: Prophecy, Necromancy, and Other Arts of Knowledge
ISBN: 9780300213362
Platform/Publisher: JSTOR / Yale University Press
Digital rights: Users: unlimited; Printing: chapter; Download: chapter
Subjects: Women in the Bible; Divination in the Bible; Bible. Old Testament -- Criticism interpretation etc.;

Divination, the use of special talents and techniques to gain divine knowledge, was practiced in many different forms in ancient Israel and throughout the ancient world. The Hebrew Bible reveals a variety of traditions of women associated with divination. This sensitive and incisive book by respected scholar Esther J. Hamori examines the wide scope of women's divinatory activities as portrayed in the Hebrew texts, offering readers a new appreciation of the surprising breadth of women's "arts of knowledge" in biblical times. Unlike earlier approaches to the subject that have viewed prophecy separately from other forms of divination, Hamori's study encompasses the full range of divinatory practices and the personages who performed them, from the female prophets and the medium of En-dor to the matriarch who interprets a birth omen and the "wise women" of Tekoa and Abel and more. In doing so, the author brings into clearer focus the complex, rich, and diverse world of ancient Israelite divination.

Esther J. Hamori is associate professor of Hebrew Bible at Union Theological Seminary. Her publications include a book on divine anthropomorphism, "When Gods Were Men": The Embodied God in Biblical and Near Eastern Literature . She lives in New York, NY.

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