This book examines changing models of the self in ancient Israel and Second Temple Judaism. Although all humans possess certain neurophysiological structures and processes that underlie the sense of “self,” significant cultural variation exists in the ways in which personal experience of the self and the social significance of the self are construed. Many of the assumptions about the self and its agency identifiable during the period of the monarchy persisted into later periods. But strikingly new ways of representing self and agency begin to occur in the Persian and Hellenistic periods, inclu ... More

This book examines changing models of the self in ancient Israel and Second Temple Judaism. Although all humans possess certain neurophysiological structures and processes that underlie the sense of “self,” significant cultural variation exists in the ways in which personal experience of the self and the social significance of the self are construed. Many of the assumptions about the self and its agency identifiable during the period of the monarchy persisted into later periods. But strikingly new ways of representing self and agency begin to occur in the Persian and Hellenistic periods, including novel ways of representing inner conflict, introspection, and concern about moral agency. While the causes and motives for these changes were complex and plural, one major factor was the cultural attempt to come to grips with the collective trauma of the destruction of Judah by the Babylonians in 586 and the Exile. The destruction was generally seen as a catastrophic failure of moral agency, and many of the subsequent innovations in models of self and agency began as attempts to reground the possibility of reliable agency. In a variety of creative ways agency was displaced from the person to God, who then transformed the person. What began as a response to trauma, however, seems to have taken on other functions. The changing assumptions about self and agency permitted the development of new and powerful forms of spiritual intimacy with God that are attested particularly in prayers and liturgical poetry.