Sacred Marriages
eBook - PDF

Sacred Marriages

The Divine-Human Sexual Metaphor from Sumer to Early Christianity

  1. 560 pages
  2. English
  3. PDF
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF

Sacred Marriages

The Divine-Human Sexual Metaphor from Sumer to Early Christianity

About this book

The title of this volume, Sacred Marriages, consciously plays with the traditional concept of sacred marriage, but the plural form, "sacred marriages," gives the reader an idea that something more is at stake here than a monomaniacal idea of manifestations deriving from a single prototype. Following the guidelines of one of the contributors, Ruben Zimmermann, the editors tentatively define "sacred marriage" as a "real or symbolic union of two complementary entities, imagined as gendered, in a religious context." "Sacred marriages" (plural), then, refers to various expressions of this kind of union in different cultures that seek to overcome, to cite Zimmermann again, "the great dualism of human and cosmic existence."

The subtitle indicates that the contributors are primarily interested in different aspects of the divine-human sexual metaphor—that is, the imagining and reenactment of a gendered relationship between the human and divine worlds. This metaphor, which is essentially about relationship rather than sexual acts, can find textual, ritual, mythical, and social expressions in different times and places.

Indeed, the sacred marriage ritual itself should be considered not a manifestation of the "sacralized power of sexuality experienced in sexual intercourse" but one way of objectifying the divine-human sexual metaphor.

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Yes, you can access Sacred Marriages by Martti Nissinen,Risto Uro in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in History & Ancient History. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Information

Publisher
Eisenbrauns
Year
2008
Print ISBN
9781575061184
eBook ISBN
9781575065724
Topic
History
Subtopic
Ancient History
Index
History

Table of contents

  1. COVER Front
  2. Copyright Page
  3. Table of Contents
  4. Chapter 1: The Sumerian Sacred Marriage andIts Aftermath in Later Sources
  5. CHapter 2: Sacred Marriage and the Transfer of Divine Knowledge: Alliances between the Gods and the King in Ancient Mesopotamia
  6. Chapter 3: Sacred Marriage and the Devotees of Istar
  7. Chapter 4: Sacred Marriage in the Ugaritic Texts?The Case of KTU/CAT 1.23(Rituals and Myths of the Goodly Gods
  8. Chapter 5: Sacred Marriage in the New Kingdomof Ancient Egypt:Circumstantial Evidence for a Ritual Interpretation
  9. Chapter 6: Hieros Gamos in Ancient Greek Religion: The Human Aspect of a Sacralized Ritual
  10. Chapter 7: Song of Songs and Sacred Marriage
  11. Chapter 8: Yahweh’s Broken Marriages as Metaphoric Vehicle in the Hebrew Bible Prophets
  12. Chapter 9: The Love Triangle of Lady Wisdom: Sacred Marriage inJewish Wisdom Literature?
  13. Chapter 10: The Sons of God and the Daughters of Men
  14. Chapter 11: The Divine-Human Marriage Matrix and Constructions of Gender and“Bodies” in the Christian Bible
  15. Chapter 12: Sacred Prostitution in the Biblical World?
  16. Chapter 13: Begotten by the Holy Spirit
  17. Chapter 14: From the Bridegroom’s Time to the Wedding of the Lamb: Nuptial Imagery in the Canonical Gospels and the Book of Revelation
  18. Chapter 15: The Bride of Christ (Ephesians 5:22–33): A Problematic Wedding
  19. Chapter 16: Sex and the Single Savior
  20. Chapter 17: Divine Desires: Fantasy and Renunciation in the Narrative of Mark’s Gospel
  21. Chapter 18: Asceticism as a Sacred Marriage: An Essay on Eastern and Western Theories
  22. Chapter 19: The Bridal Chamber and Other Mysteries: Ritual System and Ritual Transmission in the Valentinian Movement
  23. Chapter 20: Sacred Marriage and Spiritual Knowledge: Relations between Carnality and Salvation in the Apocryphon of John
  24. Indexes