Dreams and Divination from Byzantium to Baghdad, 400-1000 CE
Dreams and Divination from Byzantium to Baghdad, 400-1000 CE
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Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780198871149
Number of Pages: 256
Published: 14/01/2021
Width: 14.2 cm
Height: 22.3 cm
Why did dreams matter to Jews, Byzantine Christians, and Muslims in the first millennium? Dreams and Divination from Byzantium to Baghdad, 400 - 1000 CE shows how the ability to interpret dreams universally attracted power and influence in the first millennium. In a time when prophetic dreams were viewed as God's intervention in human history, male and female prophets wielded was unparalleled power in imperial courts, military camps, and religious gatherings. The three faiths drew on the ancient Near Eastern tradition of dream key manuals, which offer an insight into the hopes and fears of ordinary people. They melded pagan dream divination with their own scriptural traditions to produce a novel and rich culture of dream interpretation. Prophetic dreams enabled communities to understand their past and present circumstances as divinely ordained and helped to bolster the spiritual authority of dreamers and those who had the gift of interpreting their dreams. Bronwen Neil takes a gendered approach to the analysis of the common culture of dream interpretation across late antique Jewish, Byzantine, and Islamic sources to 1000 CE, in order to expose the ways in which dreams offered women a unique opportunity to exercise influence. The epilogue to the volume reveals why dreams still matter today to many men and women of the monotheist traditions.
By connecting these cultures, their worldviews and practices, Neil's book makes for an excellent piece of interdisciplinary and intercultural research whose impact exceeds the academia, providing deep insights into the world we live in. By unveiling the roots of these worldviews and practices, her monograph, therefore, does more than fill a gap in the literature; it advances our grasp of the things we see happening in the world. I wholeheartedly recommend this
monograph to scholars and students of the Abrahamic religions, of dream and divination, and to whoever seeks to understand the world in which we live. * Doru Costache, Journal for the Academic Study of Religion *
