Text amulets, - that is, amulets which contain mostly texts - bear witness to the fears and dangers against which they were supposed to help. For ancient man, they were a means of overcoming fear and communicating with supernatural powers. They are valuable sources that can be used for the study of religious history, historical anthropology, and interreligious research.
Amulets are devices for fear management and communication with supernatural forces. Textual amulets - that is, amulets which contain mostly texts - attest explicitly to human fears, or threats which were supposed to be repelled by the amulets. They are valuable sources which can be analyzed for the study of the history of religion, historical anthropology, and interreligious research. The contributions in this current volume are based on the research project »Between Materiality and Scribal Magic: West-Semitic Textual Amulets from the First Millennium BCE to the Rise of Islam«. Within this project, teams from Leipzig University and Tel Aviv University studied textual amulets from the Levant in the 1st mill. BCE and CE that were written in the West-Semitic languages. Several scholars were invited to discuss and share their expertise within the scope of this research project. The present volume is the result of this interdisciplinary and international cooperation.
Table of contents:
Angelika Berlejung: Fear Management. Amulets as a Coping Strategy for Fears and Anxiety in the
Ancient Near East of the First Millennium BCE -
Judith E. Filitz: Fear for the First Time. The Emotion of Fear in the Primeval History (Gen 1-11) -
Franziska Naether: Fear and Its Manifestations in Ancient Egyptian Literary Texts -
Laura Gonnermann: The Embodiment of Fear by Sekhmet. Coping with the Fear(s) in Ancient Egypt -
Tilmann Gaitzsch: Pharaohs and Amulets. Agency, Representation, and the Power of Amulets in Ancient Egyptian Temple Cult and its Monumental Representations -
Nesina Grütter: Clusters of Fears. A Psychology of Religion Approach to the Mesopotamian bārûtu Tradition -
Ulrike Steinert: Mesopotamian Amulet Prescriptions for Averting and Preventing Fear -
Johannes Seidel: The Cedar Tree and Fears. Substances and Their Effect on Emotions in Rituals -
Anat Bloch-Feldman: Amulets and Emotional Attachment. A Psychological Perspective on the Use of Textual Amulets in the Ancient Jewish World -
Rivka Elitzur-Leiman: Biblical Citations in Jewish Metal Amulets from Late Antiquity -
Adi Wiener: The Importance of Context. Intertextuality, Hermeneutics and Instrumentalism in Biblical References on Ancient Jewish Amulets -
Gideon Bohak: Scribal Overkill. Textual Density on Ancient Jewish Amulets -
Danieln James Waller: Fear Transformed. The Use of First-Person Narrative Spells in the Jewish Aramaic Magic Bowls -
Marco Moriggi: Fears in Syriac Incantation Texts. The Therapeutics of Textual Amulets -
Joseph E. Sanzo: From Disturbing Dreams to Divine Dread. Fear in Late Antique Christian Magic from Egypt
