The Responsive Self: Personal Religion in Biblical Literature of the Neo-Babylonian and Persian Periods (The Anchor Yale Bible Reference Library), by Susan Niditch
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The Responsive Self: Personal Religion in Biblical Literature of the Neo-Babylonian and Persian Periods (The Anchor Yale Bible Reference Library), by Susan Niditch
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Works created in the period from the Babylonian conquest of Judea through the takeover and rule of Judea and Samaria by imperial Persia reveal a profound interest in the religious responses of individuals and an intimate engagement with the nature of personal experience. Using the rich and varied body of literature preserved in the Hebrew Bible, Susan Niditch examines ways in which followers of Yahweh, participating in long-standing traditions, are shown to privatize and personalize religion. Their experiences remain relevant to many of the questions we still ask today: Why do bad things happen to good people? Does God hear me when I call out in trouble? How do I define myself? Do I have a personal relationship with a divine being? How do I cope with chaos and make sense of my experience? What roles do material objects and private practices play within my religious life? These questions deeply engaged the ancient writers of the Bible, and they continue to intrigue contemporary people who try to find meaning in life and to make sense of the world. The Responsive Self studies a variety of phenomena, including the use of first-person speech, seemingly autobiographic forms and orientations, the emphasis on individual responsibility for sin, interest in the emotional dimensions of biblical characters, and descriptions of self-imposed ritual. This set of interests lends itself to exciting approaches in the contemporary study of religion, including the concept of “lived religion,” and involves understanding and describing what people actually do and believe in cultures of religion.
The Responsive Self: Personal Religion in Biblical Literature of the Neo-Babylonian and Persian Periods (The Anchor Yale Bible Reference Library), by Susan Niditch- Amazon Sales Rank: #957884 in Books
- Published on: 2015-09-01
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.30" h x .80" w x 6.00" l, .0 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 200 pages
Review “A comprehensive and important work on personal religion as a dimension of religious life and experience. This book will be well received and become a standard text for any studies of aspects of personal religion in ancient Israel and specifically the Hebrew Bible.”—Patrick D. Miller, Princeton Theological Seminary (Patrick D. Miller)"Susan Niditch brilliantly conceptualizes new avenues into the study of personal religion. She lucidly articulates how the religion of the individual was experienced and portrayed. From self-reflection and representation to how the interiority of the individual is characterized in narrative, “lived religion” has never come more alive!"—Theodore J. Lewis, Johns Hopkins University (Theodore J. Lewis)"In this pivotal and fascinating study, Susan Niditch looks anew at the people of the past to uncover a wealth of evidence attesting to the personalization of religion. For the first time, religiously-engaged selves emerge convincingly from the faceless masses. This book marks a crucial new direction in the trans-disciplinary study of the religious realities of ancient Israelite, Judahite and Jewish groups."—Francesca Stavrakopoulou, University of Exeter (Francesca Stavrakopoulou)“Susan Niditch, the leading scholar of how the Bible adapts folk literature, here examines how biblical religion gets personal as classic conventions are adapted to express individual sensibilities and concerns. Illuminating readings and insights are elegantly expressed for the benefit of scholar and student alike. A gem.”—Edward L. Greenstein, Bar-Ilan University, Israel (Edward L. Greenstein)
About the Author Susan Niditch is Samuel Green Professor of Religion at Amherst College. She lives in Amherst, MA.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. Great Read! By William H. Brown *I would like to express my gratitude to Yale University Press for providing a review copy in exchange for my honest opinion.Susan Niditch, Professor and Chair of Religion at Amherst College, explores the various self-expressions of lived religion in the Jewish, post-exilic environment. With research interests and works in the ancient Near East, early Judaism, and the body in ancient Judaism, Niditch’s exploration of lived religion in ancient Israel during the post-exilic period is an excellent study in continuity with her interests and previous publications. The Responsive Self is a prime example of solid scholarship which draws out the personal and lived elements of ancient Israel.Niditch’s work emerges from Lived Religion, the work of sociologist of religion Meredith B. McGuire, and McGuire’s discussion regarding the complex dynamics between concrete practice, diversity, official and unofficial. Her analysis and case studies of lived religion are guided by five bearings: physical environment, authorial declaration about material culture, “non-Judean Jews”, the role of Persian culture to Yehud, and chronology.The first case study is based on a folkloric and contextualized reading that demonstrates the theodicy focus and innovative approach to lived religion dealing with sin in the works of Ezekiel and Jeremiah. In its engagement with Job and Qohelet, Chapter Two analyzes their appropriation of conventional wisdom, with special regard for death, and illustrates how their critical self-evaluation exemplifies lived religion, rather than communal or balance, in a post-exilic context. Chapter Three’s examination of lament as means of incantation traces the self-representative trajectory from incantation to autobiography in Jeremiah’s confession and Nehemiah’s memoir. With regard to vowing and personal religion, Chapter Four discusses personal, lived religion and its dynamics between personal and public religion in Nazirite and votive offerings.In the following chapter, Niditch presents post-exilic burial art and graffiti, symbolic visions of Zechariah, and sign acts of Jeremiah to illustrate the lived religion of ancient Israel through materials. Chapter Six examines prophetic encounters with the divine realm, which paradoxically reflects cultural conceptions of religious experience and personal reflection, and the concurrent and interactive dynamics of official and unofficial religion. Chapter Seven draws out the self-characterization in Ruth’s narrative, as opposed to Tamar’s narrative, and the book of Jonah, both of which express thoughts of emotion rather than ritual reflective of emotion. Her work, thus, explores the patterns of culture and humanities capacity to adjust traditions to their sociohistorical setting and skillfully draws out the complexities between the communal and individual, material and meta-physical, and self-expression in religion as lived.One of the most praiseworthy successes The Responsive Self is her ability to make significant the religious lives of ancient authors. Rather than subjecting texts to critical analysis to the end of critique, Niditch draws out the humanity of the post-exilic texts. For example, regarding nonbiblical incantaion, she notes that “these texts implicitly offer reasons for life’s challenges and testify to the human need for such explanations” (54). So beyond mere textual analysis, her work demonstrate the breadth of human experience, a most notable and consistent aspect in her work.With regard to analysis, the only point which should have been more fully explored how allusions to the combat myth seen in the raging Sea contributed to the self-expression of the book of Jonah. As Debra Ballentine has recently explored, the combat myth is appropriated by a variety of audiences and is not necessarily universally under the banner of Chaoskampf. Were Niditch to consider this in her analysis of Jonah, it would have demonstrated better how authors utilized older traditions innovatively to express the self.Apart from the minor issue with analysis about the book of Jonah, Susan Niditch expertly, skillfully, and creatively explores the dynamics of lived religion in the neo-Babylonian and Persian periods, drawing out a variety of approaches to lived religion in the post-exilic period. Her work will be beneficial especially to scholars of Jewish studies, humanities and religion, and even world literature. Rather than restricting herself to academic analysis in a manner limited to academic audiences, she opens up the world of the post-exilic period to readers. In drawing out the variety of approaches to life and religion, any person can read her work and know that 2,500 years ago people wrestled with the same issues people do in the modern era. To know that one is within the constant stream of human thought allows Niditch’s work to act almost as a catharsis for readers: humanity is not alone in non-understanding of why, but is always united in non-understanding of why.Originally posted at The Biblical Review: https://thebiblicalreview.wordpress.com/2015/09/08/the-responsive-self-by-susan-niditch/
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