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| Document Type: | Book |
|---|---|
| All Authors / Contributors: |
Frederick E Greenspahn |
| ISBN: | 0195082532 9780195082531 |
| OCLC Number: | 28424205 |
| Description: | xi, 193 p. ; 25 cm. |
| Contents: | 1. Firstborn of All Creation -- 2. An Unnatural Custom. Sacrifice of Firstborns. Inheritance. Israelite Inheritance. bekor. Succession. Summary -- 3. The Last Shall Be First -- 4. Every Brother a Supplanter -- 5. The Son God Has Chosen -- Index of Biblical and Other Sources. |
| Responsibility: | Frederick E. Greenspahn. |
| More information: |
Abstract:
Using evidence from a wide range of disciplines. Frederick E. Greenspahn presents a seminal interpretation of this phenomenon. In this study, he demonstrates that ancient Israelite fathers were in fact free to choose their primary heirs. The Bible's propensity for younger offspring, Greenspahn shows, reflects neither a legally mandated norm nor a protest against the prevailing custom, but rather conforms to a widespread folk motif, evoking innocence, vulnerability, and destiny.
Within the biblical context, this theme heightens God's role in supporting ostensibly unlikely heroes. Drawing on the resources of law, anthropology, folklore, and linguistics, Greenspahn shows how, in portraying younger siblings triumphing over older ones, these tales serve as complex parables of God's relationship to his chosen people, and reflect Israel's own discomfort with the contradiction between its theology of election and the reality of political weakness.
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Related Subjects:(13)
- Brothers in the Bible.
- Sisters in the Bible.
- First-born children in the Bible.
- Bible. -- Old Testament -- Criticism, interpretation, etc.
- Judaism -- Scriptures -- Special subjects -- Siblings
- Bible. -- O.T.
- Oude Testament.
- Broers.
- Zusters.
- Primogenituur.
- Bibel
- Geschwister
- Erstgeburt
