Power and Emotion in Ancient Judaism

Ari Mermelstein is the author of Creation, Covenant, and the Beginnings of Judaism: Reconceiving Historical Time in the Second Temple Period (2014) and co-editor of The Divine Courtroom in Comparative Perspective (2014). He is a member of the steering committee of the Society of Biblical Literature's 'Bible and Emotion' group.

• Part I. Jewish Emotional Resistance to Gentile Power-Over in the Greco-Roman Diaspora: 1. Emotional resistance to physical power-over: the performative power of the public spectacle in 4 Maccabees; 2. Emotional resistance to domination: feeling rules as proxies for power in Joseph and Aseneth; 3. Resistance to emotional stereotypes: emotional stereotypes and power dynamics in 3 Maccabees; Part II. Jewish Emotional Discourse in Response to Divine Power-Over: Emotions in the Context of Tragedy and Trauma: 4. Overcoming divine power-over: righteous anger in 1 Maccabees; 5. Coping with divine power-over: grief in 4 Ezra; Part III. The Dead Sea Sect as Emotional Community: The Power and Powerlessness of Feeling Like a Sectarian; 6. Feeling rules in the construction of communal identity: sectarian feelings in the Hodayot; 7. The power of fear: strategic manipulation of fear in the construction of a sectarian emotional community; 8. Sectarian ritual and the cultivation of an emotional habitus.

'This carefully argued volume marks a significant contribution to the study of emotion in biblical scholarship, stimulated by burgeoning emotion research across the humanities and sciences. Although writing for the academy, Mermelstein's work is clear and convincing, supported by many quoted primary texts (with English translations) and suggestive of intriguing implications and applications for modern, tension-filled religious life.' F. Scott Spencer, Interpretation: A Journal of Bible and Theology