1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910819888103321

Titolo

Sacred Marriages : The Divine-Human Sexual Metaphor from Sumer to Early Christianity / / edited by Martti Nissinen and Risto Uro

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Winona Lake, Ind. : , : Eisenbrauns, , 2008

©2008

ISBN

1-57506-572-X

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (557 p.)

Altri autori (Persone)

UroRisto

NissinenMartti

Disciplina

204/.41

Soggetti

Spirituality

Marriage - Religious aspects

SELF-HELP - Spiritual

RELIGION - Inspirational

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

Nota di contenuto

Front Cover; Front Matter; Title Page; Copyright; Contents; Abbreviations; Introduction; Chapter 1; Chatper 2; Chapter 3; Chapter 4; Chapter 5; Chapter 6; Chapter 7; Chapter 8; Chapter 9; Chapter 10; Chapter 11; Chapter 12; Chapter 13; Chapter 14; Chapter 15; Chapter 16; Chatper 17; Chapter 18; Chapter 19; Chapter 20; Indexes; Index of Subjects; Index of Authors; Index of Scripture; Index of Ancient Sources; Back Cover

Sommario/riassunto

The title of this volume, Sacred Marriages, consciously plays with the traditional concept of sacred marriage, but the plural form, "sacred marriages," gives the reader an idea that something more is at stake here than a monomaniacal idea of manifestations deriving from a single prototype. Following the guidelines of one of the contributors, Ruben Zimmermann, the editors tentatively define "sacred marriage" as a "real or symbolic union of two complementary entities, imagined as gendered, in a religious context." "Sacred marriages" (plural), then, refers to various expressions of this kind of union in different cultures that seek to overcome, to cite Zimmermann again, "the great dualism of human and cosmic existence."The subtitle indicates that the



contributors are primarily interested in different aspects of the divine-human sexual metaphor-that is, the imagining and reenactment of a gendered relationship between the human and divine worlds. This metaphor, which is essentially about relationship rather than sexual acts, can find textual, ritual, mythical, and social expressions in different times and places.Indeed, the sacred marriage ritual itself should be considered not a manifestation of the "sacralized power of sexuality experienced in sexual intercourse" but one way of objectifying the divine-human sexual metaphor.