Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
  1. Home
  2. Search

Refine search

Refine search

Access:
Content type:
Publication date:
Apply   From and To filters
Subject: Show more
Journals Show more
Publishers: Show more
Societies Show more
Series: Show more
Collections: Show more

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

1 results

  • 3 - Revivification of the Dead as National Deliverance

  • Christopher B. Hays, Fuller Theological Seminary, California
  • Book:
    The Origins of Isaiah 24–27
    Published online:
    11 June 2019
    Print publication:
    27 June 2019, pp 68-94

  • Summary

    Images of revivification are attested widely and deeply in ancient Near Eastern history, and such images are often used for political restoration. In the Amarna Letters, and in Hittite and Neo-Assyrian letters, vassals who have been saved by the emperor regularly write and describe themselves as dead men who have been brought back to life; the same enduring motif is also found in the Cyrus Cylinder. This royal role was in some way a reflection of divine life-giving, as many deities, from Marduk to Baal, were said to raise the dead. One of the standard roles of the king and gods in the ancient Near East was as a giver or restorer of life.

    Therefore, biblical passages that deploy the same images offer no inherent grounds for late dating. Revivification imagery is not, in other words, a basis on which to date a passage to a late period. The passages describing Yhwh’s power over death in Isa 25:7-8 and 26:19 lack the literary cohesiveness and detail found in Ezek 37:1–14, as well as the references to sectarian differences and eternal fates found in Dan 12. The less developed Isaiah passages should be considered earlier.