From Epic to Canon: History and Literature in Ancient Israel - Softcover

Cross, Frank Moore

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0801865336 ISBN 13: 9780801865336

Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000

Synopsis

Winner of the Centennial Book Award from the Tuttleman Family Foundation of Gratz College

In From Epic to Canon, Frank Moore Cross discusses specific issues that illuminate central questions about the Hebrew Bible and those who created and preserved it. He challenges the persistent attempt to read Protestant theological polemic against law into ancient Israel. Cross uncovers the continuities between the institutions of kinship and of covenant, which he describes as "extended kinship." He examines the social structures of ancient Israel and reveals that beneath its later social and cultural accretions, the concept of covenant―as opposed to codified law―was a vital part of Israel's earliest institutions. He then draws parallels between the expression of kinship and covenant among the Israelites and that practiced by other ancient societies, as well as in primitive societies.

About this title

About the Author

Frank Moore Cross is the Hancock Professor of Hebrew and Other Oriental Languages (Emeritus) in the Department of Near Eastern Languages at Harvard University. His many books include The Ancient Library of Qumran and Modern Biblical Studies, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic, and, as editor, the Hermeneia series of Old Testament commentaries and Qumran and the History of Biblical Text. In addition, he has received several honorary degrees and prizes, including the William Foxwell Albright Award in Biblical Scholarship, the Israel Museum's Percia Schimmel Prize in Archaeology, and the Medalla de Honor of the University of Madrid.

Edition details

• Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0801865336
• ISBN 13: 9780801865336
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 280