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2 - Reconsidering the Semantics of the “Inclination” (yeṣer) in Classical Biblical Hebrew

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2021

Ishay Rosen-Zvi
Affiliation:
Tel-Aviv University
James Aitken
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
Hector M. Patmore
Affiliation:
KU Leuven, Belgium
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Summary

It is widely acknowledged that the far-reaching development of yeṣer as a theological and anthropological concept has little to do with the use of this word in the Hebrew Bible. Still, it is often asserted that the link between the biblical employment of yeṣer and its demonized hypostases in later literature is anchored in a semantic change that took place already in Biblical Hebrew (BH). Following earlier Bible scholars, Ishay Rosen-Zvi has recently summarized the scholarly consensus at the opening of his comprehensive study, Demonic Desires: “The root יצר […] denotes [in the Hebrew Bible] the creating, fashioning, and designing of objects (mostly made of clay). … The noun indicates the result of this craft: an object or a creature (Hab 2:18).

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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