Priests, Prophets, Diviners, Sages: A Socio-Historical Study of Religious Specialists in Ancient Israel

In this book Professor Grabbe undertakes the first serious analysis of the interactive roles of religious specialists in ancient Israel. The first portion of the book focuses on the problems of historical and sociological study, especially the crucial problem of whether the text reflects an actual historical society. Then follows studies of the five main forms of religious specialists considered as Weberian "ideal types," that is, as if each existed in pure form in society. Cross-cultural parallels elsewhere in the ancient Near East and, in some cases, from modern anthropological studies are examined, ending with a composite picture of the various specialists and how they related to one another.