Through sustained analysis of texts and visual sources, this volume traces the checkered career of Neo-Assyrian religious interaction with subject polities of Western Asia through both punitive measures and calculated diplomatic patronage.

This book offers a transliteration and translation of a text that has long been referred to as a "mystery papyrus." The scribes of Papyrus Amherst 63 used the Demotic script to put down in writing a compilation of Aramaic texts. This unusual combination of script and language necessitates the collaboration of scholars from different disciplines. Since the papyrus is not a merely linguistic puzzle but a challenge too in terms of its religious and historical background, no scholar is likely to singlehandedly solve the enigmas of the text. If it had not been for the help and advice of many colleagues and friends, I would not have been able to present this edition. Let me simply give their names, in alphabetic order, without going into detail about the specific contribution each of them made. My thanks go to Paul-Alain Beaulieu, John J. Collins, Edward M. Cook, Lucinda Dirven, Koen Donker van Heel, Tawny Holm, Olaf Kaper, Aaron J. Koller, Ingo Kottsieper, Verena Lepper, Herbert Niehr, Dennis G. Pardee, Mark S. Smith, Richard C. Steiner, Marten Stol, and Jan Willem Wesselius. The purpose of this list is neither to enhance the credibility of this edition nor to shift the blame for its shortcomings to others. It is most of all testimony to the importance and the privilege of working within a scholarly community where we feel free to share our thoughts without fear of making errors. In the case of Papyrus Amherst 63 it will still take a lot of errors before we reach a perfect understanding of the text and its background. I am confident this book is a small step toward that goal. It is gratefully dedicated to Richard C. Steiner and Jan Willem Wesselius, pioneers in the decipherment and interpretation of Papyrus Amherst 63.

An international array of twenty-six scholars contributes twenty-one essays to honor Ziony Zevit (American Jewish University), one of the foremost biblical scholars of his generation. The breadth of the honoree is indicated by the breadth of coverage in these twenty-one articles, with seven each in the categories of history and archaeology, Bible, and Hebrew (and Aramaic) language.

This substantial volume comprises almost fifty Semitic and Assyrological studies dedicated to Pelio Fronzaroli, professor of Semitic philology at the University of Florence, written by colleagues and pupils.

In this book, Bob Becking provides a comprehensive and up-to-date overview of the origins, lives, and eventual fate of the Yehudites, or Judeans, at Elephantine, framed within the greater history of the rise and fall of the Persian Empire. The Yehudites were among those mercenaries recruited by the Persians to defend the southwestern border of the empire in the fifth century BCE. Becking argues that this group, whom some label as the first “Jews,” lived on the island of Elephantine in relative peace with other ethnic groups under the aegis of the pax persica. Drawing on Aramaic and Demotic texts discovered during excavations on the island and at Syene on the adjacent shore of the Nile, Becking finds evidence of intermarriage, trade cooperation, and even a limited acceptance of one another’s gods between the various ethnic groups at Elephantine. His analysis of the Elephantine Yehudites’ unorthodox form of Yahwism provides valuable insight into the group’s religious beliefs and practices. An important contribution to the study of Yehudite life in the diaspora, this accessibly written and sweeping history enhances our understanding of the varieties of early Jewish life and how these contributed to the construction of Judaism.

Recognizing the absence of a God named Yahweh outside of ancient Israel, this study addresses the related questions of Yahweh's origins and the biblical claim that there were Yahweh-worshipers other than the Israelite people. Beginning with the Hebrew Bible, with an exhaustive survey of ancient Near Eastern literature and inscriptions discovered by archaeology, and using anthropology to reconstruct religious practices and beliefs of ancient Edom and Midian, this study proposes an answer. Yahweh-worshiping Midianites of the Early Iron Age brought their deity along with metallurgy into ancient Palestine and the Israelite people.