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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
The Last Of The Rephaim: Conquest And Cataclysm In The Heroic Ages Of Ancient Israel, Brian R. Doak
The Last Of The Rephaim: Conquest And Cataclysm In The Heroic Ages Of Ancient Israel, Brian R. Doak
Faculty Publications - George Fox School of Theology
This dissertation explores the role of giants in the narrative and historiographic worlds of symbol, geography, and religion in ancient Israel. The Nephilim, Anaqim, Rephaim, Emim, Zamzumim/Zuzim, some Gibborim, and other individuals (e.g., Goliath) can all be classified as “giants”—not only with respect to their height and other physical properties, but also with respect to the negative moral qualities assigned to giants in antiquity. Previous interpreters have treated giants as merely a fantastical prop against which God’s agents emerge victorious. I argue that giants are a theologically and historiographically generative group, through which we gain insight into central aspects of …
Funerary Iconography On An Infant Burial Jar From Ashkelon, Brian R. Doak, Kathleen Birney
Funerary Iconography On An Infant Burial Jar From Ashkelon, Brian R. Doak, Kathleen Birney
Faculty Publications - George Fox School of Theology
The 2007 season of the Leon Levy Expedition to Ashkelon unearthed a remarkable intramural infant jar burial, bearing roughly incised images on both sides. While a number of intramural infant burials have been recovered from late twelfth–eleventh century levels at the site, this jar is the first burial to reveal anything about the funerary beliefs and rituals that might be associated with such practices. The iconography itself is unique within the Philistine milieu, as well as within the broader context of Syro-Palestinian funerary imagery, instead echoing Egyptian funerary motifs. After a brief discussion of the jar and its archaeological context …