These studies take up several themes that the author has pursued in addition to his work on witchcraft literature and Gilgamesh. The volume contains general articles on Mesopotamian magic, religion, and mythology; studies, synchronic and diachronic, on Akkadian prayers; treatments of literary classics; comparative studies of terms and phenomena; and examinations of legal texts.

This book brings together a valuable collection of 14 previously published essays (and one not published) filled with insight and erudition by William L. Moran. He for many years was the Andrew Mellon Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University. He had studied with W. F. Albright, Benno Landsberger, and Thorkild Jacobson and taught Assyriology at Harvard. They include "The Creation of Man in Atrahasis I 192-249"; "New Evident from Mari on the History of Prophecy"; The ANE Background of the Love of God in Deuteronomy"; "The Babylonian Job" and "The epic of Gilgamesh: A Document of Ancient Humanism."

This book brings together a valuable collection of 14 previously published essays (and one not published) filled with insight and erudition by William L. Moran. He for many years was the Andrew Mellon Professor of the Humanities at Harvard University. He had studied with W. F. Albright, Benno Landsberger, and Thorkild Jacobson and taught Assyriology at Harvard. They include "The Creation of Man in Atrahasis I 192-249"; "New Evident from Mari on the History of Prophecy"; The ANE Background of the Love of God in Deuteronomy"; "The Babylonian Job" and "The epic of Gilgamesh: A Document of Ancient Humanism."

Presented in this volume is a collection of the shorter writings of one of the more innovative scholars working on the relationship between the writings of the Hebrew Bible and its ancient Near East context. Topics include: ANE environment, literature of the ANE, myth versus history, Nebuchadnezzar I’s Elamite crisis, Job and the Israelite religious tradition, motif of the weeping God in Jeremiah, lament tradition in ANE, the hand of Yahweh, and whether God lies.

This collection gathers together Professor Shemaryahu Talmon’s contributions to the literary study of the Bible, and complements his acclaimed Literary Studies in the Hebrew Bible: Form and Content: Collected Studies (Jerusalem: Magnes / Leiden: Brill, 1993). The articles included herein span a broad range of topics, closely and comprehensively assessing fundamental themes and stylistic conceits present in biblical literature. Each study picks up one of these motifs or patterns, and traces its meaning and usage throughout the entire Bible. In Talmon’s estimation, these literary markers transcend all strata of the Bible, and despite diachronic developments, they retain their basic meanings and connotations throughout, even when employed by different authors over a span of hundreds of years. He demonstrates this convincingly by marshaling dozens of examples, each of which is valuable in its own right, and when taken all together, these building-blocks form a solid edifice that validate his approach. He judiciously employs this synchronic method throughout, frequently invoking an exegetical principle according to which one biblical verse can be employed to interpret the other, if they are found in similar contexts and with overlapping formulation. To use an expression that he coined elsewhere, his hermeneutical method can be described first and foremost as “The World of the Bible from Within.” Throughout the articles that appear in this volume, one is repeatedly struck by his sensitivity to the language and style of the biblical authors. He was blessed with a rich literary intuition, and shares with his readers his ability to see, hear, and understand the rhythms and poetics of biblical literature. In this volume, many of Talmon’s contributions are made accessible in fresh form to the benefit of both those who already know his work and to a newer generation of scholars for whom his work continues to prove important.

Celebrate the career of an inspirational scholar and teacher concerned with revealing voices from the margins This volume of essays honors Susan Niditch, author of War in the Hebrew Bible: A Study in the Ethics of Violence (1993), “My Brother Esau Is a Hairy Man”: Hair and Identity in Ancient Israel (2008), and most recently, The Responsive Self: Personal Religion in Biblical Literature of the Neo-Babylonian and Persian Periods (forthcoming), among other influential publications. Essays touch on topics such as folklore, mythology, and oral history, Israelite religion, ancient Judaism, warfare, violence, and gender. Features: Essays from nineteen scholars, all experts in their fields Exploration of texts from Mesopotamia, the Hebrew Bible, and the New Testament Bibliography of Niditch's scholarly contributions