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The Empty Men: The Heroic Tradition of Ancient Israel
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Author
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Gregory Mobley.
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Publisher
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Doubleday
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Format
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hardcover
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Product Dimensions
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9.5
x
6.4
x
0.95
inches
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ISBN
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9780300140125
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Pages/Publication Date
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294/2005
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Daedalus Item Code
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12534
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List Price:
$35.00
Sale Price:
$5.98
You Save:
$29.02
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Description
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In this work of literary archaeology, Gregory Mobley brings a highly original eye to the biblical stories found in Judges, which depict Israel's frontier era, and in First and Second Samuel, which portray the ragged and violent emergence of kingship in Judah and Israel. Mobley draws upon Semitic and European heroic traditions about warriors and wild men, and upon Celtic, Anglo-American, and African-American balladry about borderers and outlaws to dig out the heroic themes submerged in biblical adventure stories. From Ehud's mission into an inaccessible Moabite palace to the triumph of Gideon and his elite squadron against a Midianite army, from the gangland epic of the warlord Abimelech's rise and fall to the narrative of Samson, Israel's great outlaw-hero, Mobley rescues these stories from their theologically minded biblical editors and traditional interpreters. He describes the process by which adventure stories—replete with foolish love, warfare, assassinations, ritual slaughter, and grim masculine codes—were transformed into sermons and history lessons. Mobley also offers reflections on the Iron Age theology of these narratives, with their emphasis on poetic justice, and on the mythic dimensions of landscape in these stories.
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