Tracing the Ritual Body

Catherine Bell and Rituals of the Ancient Biblical World

Ada Taggar Cohen, Richard E. DeMaris, Jonathan Schwiebert, Ada Taggar Cohen, Richard E. DeMaris, Jonathan Schwiebert

• Publisher: T&T Clark
• Year: 2024
• Print ISBN:
  9780567710550
• eBook ISBN:
  9780567710567
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Criticism & Interpretation

This volume utilizes Catherine Bell's ritual theory to shed new light on the many rituals reflected in ancient Mediterranean texts. In recent decades scholars of religion have come to realize that ritual and bodily practices are just as important for religion as beliefs and doctrine. With the development of ritual studies in the 1990s there arose a critical framework for investigating ritual and practice. Only recently, however, has Bell's theorizing been employed to study the rituals portrayed in ancient texts. This cross-disciplinary examination assesses the utility of Bell's theorizing for studying the textual evidence for rituals of the ancient Near East, the Hebrew Bible, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the New Testament, and other early Christian literature.
The contributors to this volume illustrate a path away from regarding rituals as inert and fixed and toward a more complex and vibrant interactive model of ritual behaviour. In this volume, as each scholar works to recover the traces of long-past rituals in a particular set of materials, these and other concepts are consciously employed to guide or challenge the investigation, pushing beyond previous conclusions about ancient rituals. The contributors' attention to theory, and especially the social context, practical function, and symbolic interpretation, set this collection apart from studies that consider the rituals in more traditional textual ways.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle page
• Title page
• Copyright page
• CONTENTS
• FIGURES AND TABLES
• ABBREVIATIONS
• PREFACE
• NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
• Introduction: CATHERINE BELL AND THE ANCIENT MEDITERRANEAN RITUAL WORLD
• Chapter 1 RITUAL PERFORMANCE AND HITTITE ROYAL IDEOLOGY IN DIALOGUE WITH CATHERINE BELL’S POWER OF RITUALIZATION
• Chapter 2 THE RELEVANCE OF CATHERINE BELL’S APPROACH TO RITUALIZATION FOR ANALYSIS OF PENTATEUCHAL RITUAL TEXTS
• Chapter 3 OPEN THY EYES , LORD, AND SEE THE WORDS: THE RITUALIZATION OF HEZEKIAH’S RESPONSES TO THE NEO-ASSYRIAN CRISIS
• Chapter 4 CREATING A VIRTUAL HOLY CENTER IN THE DEAD SEA SECT
• Chapter 5 THE GOSPEL OF MARK THROUGH A RITUAL LENS
• Chapter 6 RITUALIZATION AND PRACTICE IN CORINTH
• Chapter 7 THE MUSICAL BODY AS A LOCUS OF POWER IN EARLY CHRISTIAN RITUAL: AN APPLICATION OF CATHERINE BELL
• Chapter 8 MAKING THE SIGN OF THE CROSS: TO DO AND TO UNDO
• Chapter 9 CATHERINE BELL IN THE BIBLICAL WORLD
• INDEX OF MODERN AUTHORS
• INDEX OF PRIMARY SOURCES
• SUBJECT INDEX