The Oxford Handbook of Ritual and Worship in the Hebrew Bible

Ritual has a primal connection to the idea that a transcendent order – numinous and mysterious, supranatural and elusive, divine and wholly other – gives meaning and purpose to life. The construction of rites and rituals enables humans to conceive and apprehend this transcendent order, to symbolize it and interact with it, to postulate its truths in the face of contradicting realities and to repair them when they have been breached or diminished. This Handbook provides a compendium of the information essential for constructing a comprehensive and integrated account of ritual and worship in the ancient world.