Dreams of the Hebrews and Other Ancient Peoples: A Contextual Panoply for Religious Minds

Abstract

The Bible as well as other great books of historical and revealed religions show traces of a general and substantial belief in Dreams. Joseph saw eleven stars bow to him; the twelfth star. The famine of Egypt was revealed by a vision of fat and lean cattle. The parents of Christ were warned of the cruel edict of Herod, and fled with the Divine Child into Egypt. Pilate’s wife, through the influence of a dream advised her husband to have nothing to do with the conviction of Christ. Consequently, most people have a haunting notion that there is more meaning in dreams than admitted. Students find volumes of research about dreams in various areas. Medical men are working on the psychology of dreaming in laboratories in many of the leading hospitals and Universities, while others, following the likes of Freud and Jung, make studies from the standpoint of Psychiatry, or Anthropology, or History, and importantly, Religion.  In the Old Testament, Dream was a veritable avenue through which God communicated with His people in order to warn, direct and guide them. Furthermore, this same method of Divine dreams are recorded among the Ancient Near Eastern Peoples (ANE), some of which existed before the biblical Hebrews. Such dreams were very much ‘revelational’ and often with precise accuracy, just like that of the Jews. This Paper therefore theologically explored these ancient peoples and their dreams from a didactic context.  The paper employed descriptive research method as well as textual analysis of a diachronic type to interrogate the research focus. The paper concluded and recommended that contemporary Christians should be more intentional about cultivating their natural giftedness in the areas of dreams, visions, etc., as well as the understanding of the import and impact of dreams as oracular medium that is not demonic, but an important revelatory and didactic process that is both divine and biblical.