Unburning fame : horses, dragons, beings of smoke, and other Indo-European motifs in Ugarit and the Hebrew Bible
In this book, Ola Wikander studies Indo-European influences in the literary world of the Hebrew Bible and the Ugaritic texts, tracing a number of poetic motifs and other concepts originating in the Indo-European linguistic milieux of the greater Ancient Near East (e.g., among Anatolians and in Indo-European traditions transmitted through Mitanni)--and possibly at earlier, reconstructible levels--as they influenced what became Northwest Semitic poetic culture. The methodology used is what Wikander refers to as "etymological poetics": the study of poetic and mythological structures as transmitted through specific lexical material. One of the motifs discussed is that of destroying heat being used as a metaphor for forgetting important cultural memories and, consequently, of the resilience of such memories being expressed as resistance to burning. Thus, bringing these ancient connections between Indo-European and Northwest Semitic culture into the open is, in a sense, showing their "Unburning Fame"
xi, 185 s
9781575067629, 1575067625
1001389303
Preface1. Introduction2. Preamble: The Semitic and Indo-European Language Families, and Possible Arenas of Interaction3. Horse and Plow: Case Studies in Technological Indo-European/Hebrew vocabulary4.Biblical Chaos Dragons—and Indo-European Ones5. Beings of Smoke: Terms for Living Breath and Humanity in Indo-European, Ugaritic, and Hebrew—and Remarks on Fatlings and Merciful Bodies6. When Jeroboam Divided His God7. Dagan/Dagon as a Possibly Indo-European-derived Name, and some Methodological Questions Raised by Religio-historical Etymology8. Strangers, Boundary Crossers, and Young Predators in Hebrew and Indo-European: gwr, *h3erbh-, and hÌ®abiru9. Fame That Does Not Burn: The Verb ṯkhÌ£;, the Drought Motif, Indo-European *dhgwhei-, and Etymological Poetics10. Dragons Returning Home: The "Pizza Effect"11. In Conclusion12. Abbreviations13. Bibliography14. Index of Personal Names15. Index locorum