The publication of the lectures is made possible by a special gift from the Taubman Foundation. Years of study of non-psalmic prayer in the Hebrew Scriptures culminated in an article I prepared on the subject in 1980 for the final volume of the Hebrew Encyclopaedia Biblica. In the rest, the verbal formulation of the prayer is given - about 97 prayer texts.
The fuller pattern of Samson's and Jacob's prayers contrasts with Moses' five-word prayer. Speaking evidence of the biblical assumption of the universal capacity for prayer and its unlimited effect is found in the Book of Jonah. The content of the prayers is tailored to the circumstances in which it occurs; therefore, the beans cannot be reused.
Finally, we noted that the specificity of the embedded prayers means that they play a role in the argument. The main task of the classical prophets was to make known to the people the divine messages that were hidden in (usually disastrous) events. The components of this confession arise from the situation of the confessor confronting the person he has injured.
Solomon's prayer at the solemn opening of the temple foresees future exiles who will repent and plead with God. Our third example of the social analogy of prayer speech comes from the expression of gratitude. It is a testimony of the author's perception of a happy event as a gift from God, a testimony gratefully offered in public for the greater glory of God.
Scientific appreciation of the embedded prayers in the Hebrew Scriptures has been tainted by eliminating presuppositions. Heiler did not suppress his romantic Protestant predilection for the free spirit of the individual. As the "link" between true prayer of the heart and the mechanically set prayer, Heiler mentions "the flexible, elastic outline, freely adapted to the concrete needs of the moment".
The origin of the prayer was now sought in the formal, liturgical prayers of society; the prayer was performed by an expert who acted as a municipal spokesman. Among these, the moral status of the speaker in the assessment of the accused and his sincerity plays a decisive role. References to the involvement of the heart in prayer appear even more frequently in the "higher" literature of the Bible - the prophetic, poetic, and wisdom books.
A certain degree of spiritual enlightenment is said to be responsible for the general tolerance, even receptiveness of people;.
NOTES
Corvin, "A Stylistic and Functional Study of the Prose Prayers of the Old Testament," Ph.D. Newing's 1978 treatise (University of St. Andrew's, Scotland, made available to me by courtesy of the author), "The Prose Lamentations of Pre-Exilic Israel," contains detailed exegetical, contextual, stylistic, and rhetorical observations; its form-critical focus turns out to be unrewarding in the end. The question of extemporized prayer does not come up for separate treatment or evaluation in any of the aforementioned works.
On the surface it was the way in which the prayer made contact with (he might have thought: . brought attention to) the invisible God. At most it is mentioned to pray; otherwise a brief summary of the contents is given” (see. The younger brother, in the Tale of the Two Brothers, makes a short prayer, in biblical style, in a desperate situation (Pritchard, p. . . 24); Ramses II. , i a battle emergency, makes a long "spontaneous".
This research (with the kind assistance of John Baines, Irena Shirun and Miriam Lichtheim on the Egyptological side) is sufficient to show that the biblical depiction of pagan sailors illustrating prayer is not without basis in extra-biblical sources. Muraoka authentically translates it as, "I ask YHWH to bless you," comparing Je with 'el for "they praised her 'el (to = before) Pharaoh" (Genesis 12:1S); Targum Neofiti qdm "before"); see Annual of the Bible Institute of Japan 5 (1979), p. They thought that prayers in late prose showed the influence of the psalms: “The imitation of psalms and cult poetry in general is also seen in the prayers of later prose. -literature, e.g. Solomon's Prayer.
For the Roman view that prayer must be answered "as the authorities of the State have laid down as the proper wording, and if the ritual accompanying it is equally in order," see W. Furthermore, even with God (as I said in the conclusion of lecture 1) the status of the supplicant counted, so that a prophet or righteous man could be especially effective as an intercessor. The normal practice of the Babylonians in times of need was to petition their personal gods.
1051 (Jacobsen's recent discussion in his The Treasures of Darkness [New Haven, 19761, pp. 147-164, emphasizes the paternal aspect of the personal god; it does not touch the point being made here.). The oft-quoted passage in the Instructions of Merikare, "The bread of the upright is preferred to the ox of the evildoer" [M. The combination in Israel of the immediate accessibility of the high God to all Israelites, and his essential justice, was a decisive, fatal difference.
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