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dc.contributor.authorBeadle, David Nathaniel
dc.date.accessioned2017-03-20T09:08:34Z
dc.date.issued2016-05-14
dc.description.abstractThis thesis proposes that integrated rituals of netherworld descent and heavenly ascent are represented in the Hebrew Bible as having been performed by Davidic royals – royal women, as well as male monarchs. In some instances (e.g. Psalms 2; 18; 24; 89:2-38; and 110) these rituals are represented idealistically, with Yahweh confirming the king’s ritual status and potency, through re-presented speech acts. In other instances, however, while an idealistic picture of monarchy continues to be upheld, it is subverted from within in varying ways (e.g. 2 Kgs 9:30-37; 11; Ps. 89:39-52; Isa. 14.4b-20; Jer. 13:18-20; Ezekiel 19). The differing portrayals of monarchy reflect the differing ways with which biblical texts are negotiating and interacting with ambiguous discourses embodying memories of monarchy. On the one hand, after the fall of monarchic Judah, ‘foreign’ monarchy (and especially trading monarchies, such as those of Phoenicia) were fetishised within biblical authors’ discourses of political and economic imperialism, and so Davidic monarchy became a signifier of an enchanting and mystifying ‘indigenous’ past. On the other hand, discourses concerning the past frequently referenced exile, and the collapse of monarchy. Some biblical representations of ritual netherworld descent and heavenly ascent acknowledge this latter, uncomfortable kind of remembering – even as they reify and reinforce these enchanting memories which they subvert. The remembered, cosmically liminal first temple and the remembered royal body become loci for these paradoxical, contradictory, and competing memories. This much is evident in mystifying royal cosmic liminality and heavenly ascent, access to divine knowledge, and mimesis of Yahweh; in cathartic myths of the subjugation of the forces of chaos and disorder, both cosmic and military; and in the subversion of the enchanting remembered Davidic cultic praxis of descent and ascent, through these motifs’ re-presentations in montages alongside rituals which connote displacement, destruction, profanation, desecration, subjugation and being forgotten. In these instances, the vulnerabilities inherent in cultural idealising of the Davidic monarchy’s potent cosmic liminality are brought into sharp relief.en_GB
dc.description.sponsorshipArts and Humanities Research Councilen_GB
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10871/26678
dc.language.isoenen_GB
dc.publisherUniversity of Exeteren_GB
dc.rights.embargoreasonSubmitting thesis for publication as a monograph.en_GB
dc.subjectHebrew Bibleen_GB
dc.subjectOld Testamenten_GB
dc.subjectCultural Memoryen_GB
dc.subjectRitualen_GB
dc.subjectNetherworld Descenten_GB
dc.subjectHeavenly Ascenten_GB
dc.subjectKingshipen_GB
dc.subjectRoyal Mothersen_GB
dc.subjectPsalmsen_GB
dc.subjectIsaiah 14en_GB
dc.titleThe 'Divine' Confused and Abused: Cultural Memories of Royal Ritual Netherworld Descent and Heavenly Ascent in the Hebrew Bibleen_GB
dc.typeThesis or dissertationen_GB
dc.contributor.advisorStavrakopoulou, Francesca
dc.publisher.departmentTheology and Religionen_GB
dc.type.degreetitlePhD in Theologyen_GB
dc.type.qualificationlevelDoctoralen_GB
dc.type.qualificationnamePhDen_GB


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