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  4. Of Wood and Stone: A Comparative Study of Ancient South Arabian Construction Texts and the Hebrew Bible

Of Wood and Stone: A Comparative Study of Ancient South Arabian Construction Texts and the Hebrew Bible

File(s)
Weimar_cornell_0058O_10147.pdf (547.15 KB)
Permanent Link(s)
https://doi.org/10.7298/X4B56GVC
https://hdl.handle.net/1813/56943
Collections
Cornell Theses and Dissertations
Author
Weimar, Jason Everett
Abstract

This paper argues that the Hebrew Bible and Ancient South Arabian texts share a common usage of the phrase “wood and stone,” with a specific focus on Minaic construction texts from the 5th-2nd century BCE and four texts from Kings (1 Kings 5:32; 15:22; 2 Kings 12:13; 22:6). In both corpora “wood and stone” functions as a merism, a literary device that uses two pieces to express a whole. Furthermore, the phrase also appears in contexts denoting divine favor and expresses the religious-political authority of the primary agent(s) behind the construction. This shared usage of “wood and stone” helps solve an exegetical difficulty in Exodus 7:19 and also hints at a deeper inland tradition between ancient Palestine and Yemen that shared similar conceptions of how political-religious authority should be expressed.

Date Issued
2017-08-30
Keywords
Ancient South Arabian
•
Arabia
•
Bible
•
Exodus
•
Kings
•
Yemen
•
Biblical studies
•
Near Eastern studies
•
Archaeology
Committee Chair
Monroe, Lauren
Committee Member
Tenney, Jonathan S.
Degree Discipline
Archaeology
Degree Name
M.A., Archaeology
Degree Level
Master of Arts
Type
dissertation or thesis

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