This book examines temple renovation as a rhetorical topic within royal literature of the ancient Near East. Unlike newly founded temples, which were celebrated for their novelty, temple renovations were oriented toward the past. Kings took the opportunity to rehearse a selective history of
the temple, evoking certain past traditions and omitting others. In this way, temple renovations were a kind of historiography. Andrew R. Davis demonstrates a pattern in the rhetoric of temple renovation texts: that kings in ancient Mesopotamia, Israel, Syria and Persia used temple renovation to
correct, or at least distance themselves from, some turmoil of recent history and to associate their reigns with an earlier and more illustrious past.
Davis draws on the royal literature of the seventh and sixth centuries BCE for main evidence of this rhetoric. Furthermore, he argues for reading the story of Jeroboam I's placement of calves at Dan and Bethel (1 Kgs 12:25-33) as an eighth-century BCE account of temple renovation with a similar
rhetoric. Concluding with further examples in the Hellenistic and Roman periods, Reconstructing the Temple demonstrates that the rhetoric of temple renovation was a distinct and longstanding topic in the ancient Near East.
Author(s): Andrew R. Davis
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Year: 2019
Language: English
Pages: 240
City: Oxford
Cover
Reconstructing the Temple
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations
1. Introduction to Temple Renovation in the Ancient Near East and Beyond
2. Temple Renovation in Neo-Assyrian Records and the Book of Kings
Esarhaddon’s Reports of Temple Renovation
The Renovation of Ešarra
The Renovation of Esagil
Temple Renovation and Priests’ Letters
Accounts of Temple Renovation in 2 Kings
Jehoash’s Renovation (2 Kgs 12:5–17)
Ahaz’s Renovation (2 Kgs 16:10–18)
Josiah’s Renovation (2 Kgs 22–23)
3. Persian Temple Renovations and the Rebuilding of the Jerusalem Temple
Temple Renovations by Cyrus II
The New Capital at Pasargadae
Restoration of Babylonian Temples
Temple Renovations under Cambyses II
Temple Renovations under Darius I
The Renovation of Susa
Temple Renovation in the Bisitun Inscription
Temple Renovations in Egypt
The Second Temple in Light of Persian Temple Renovations
4. The Renovations of Dan and Bethel
1 Kings 12:25–33 as a Renovation Text
The Eighth Century bce as the Background of 1 Kings 12:25–33
Joash, Jeroboam II, and the Rhetoric of Renovation
Comparison to the Panamuwa and Bar-Rakib Inscriptions
5. Temple Renovation in Later Periods
Selected Bibliography
Index of Biblical Texts
Index of Other Ancient Texts
Subject Index
