Dreams and Dream Narratives in the Biblical World (Biblical Seminar, 63)

"This study of dream accounts in the Bible and in Ancient Near Eastern literature suggests two main lines of interpretation: on the one hand, it defines the function of dream accounts from a literary, social, political and religious point of view on the basis of literary genre (practitioners' manuals, royal inscriptions, prophetic texts, etc.). On the other hand, in adopting a rather larger typology than is usual (including message dreams, symbolic dreams, and also prophetic, premonitory and judgement dreams), it seeks to clarify both the relationship between the fiction implied by the literary form and the actual dream experience of individuals, as well as the different ritual practices related to this experience (interpretation, conjuration, incubation, etc.)."--BOOK JACKET.