Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Ancestor cult?

Both textual and archaeological evidence supports a variety of forms of mortuary rites and ritual communication with the dead. This evidence reveals that, in ancient Israel, there was no ancestor cult in the sense of ancestors being venerated as divine or quasidivine beings, although the dead may have been addressed as preternatural beings.—Family and Household Religion in Ancient Israel and the Levant, page 471

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