In The Babylonian Disputation Poems Enrique Jiménez studies a group of ancient Babylonian poems that feature discussions between animals and trees. Using intertextual parallels and comparison with similar works in other literatures, he espouses a new classification of the Babylonian disputation poems as parodies. After examining neighboring traditions of literary disputation, he argues that the Babylonian poems influenced them, and that some may have been translated from Akkadian to Aramaic, from Aramaic and Syriac to Arabic. In addition, The Babylonian Disputation Poems provides editions of several previously unpublished Babylonian disputations, such as Palm and Vine and the Series of the Spider. It also offers the first edition of the latest known Babylonian fable, The Story of the Poor, Forlorn Wren. “The present book is an exemplary model for editing and commenting upon ancient texts, and almost every approach has been taken into account.” -Markham J. Geller, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 43.5 (2019)

Disputation literature is a type of text in which usually two non-human entities (such as trees, animals, drinks, or seasons) try to establish their superiority over each other by means of a series of speeches written in an elaborate, flowery register. As opposed to other dialogue literature, in disputation texts there is no serious matter at stake only the preeminence of one of the litigants over its rival. These light-hearted texts are known in virtually every culture that flourished in the Middle East from Antiquity to the present day, and they constitute one of the most enduring genres in world literature. The present volume collects over twenty contributions on disputation literature by a diverse group of world-renowned scholars. From ancient Sumer to modern-day Bahrain, from Egyptian to Neo-Aramaic, including Latin, French, Middle English, Armenian, Chinese and Japanese, the chapters of this book study the multiple avatars of this venerable text type.

In Weapons of Words: Intertextual Competition in Babylonian Poetry Selena Wisnom offers an in-depth literary study of three poems central to Babylonian culture: Anzû, Enūma eliš, and Erra and Išum. Fundamentally interconnected, each poem strives to out-do its predecessors and competes to establish its protagonist, its ideals, and its poetics as superior to those that came before them. The first of its kind in Assyriology, Weapons of Words explores the rich nuances of these poems by unravelling complex networks of allusion. Through a sophisticated analysis of literary techniques, Selena Wisnom traces developments in the Akkadian poetic tradition and demonstrates that intertextual readings are essential for a deeper understanding of Mesopotamian literature.

In Dialogue on Monarchy in the Gideon-Abimelech Narrative, Albert Sui Hung Lee applies Bakhtin’s dialogism to uncover pro- and anti-monarchical voices in the Gideon–Abimelech narrative and the redactor’s intention of engaging exilic or post-exilic communities in an “unfinalized” dialogue of polity forms.

In early Greek and Near Eastern myth and religion, the gods govern the cosmos. In narrative poetry, they are frequently portrayed through scenes of divine assembly. Did Homer and early Greek poets inherit this feature from their more ancient neighbours? And what can comparison tell us besides? This book is the first to chart divine assembly scenes in ancient Babylonian and early Greek epic. It asks why similarities between the two corpora exist, and exploits those similarities to enhance understanding of Mesopotamian and early Greek literature and religion. The book discusses Sumerian narrative poems, the Akkadian works Atra-ḫasīs, Anzû, Enūma eliš, Erra and Išum and the Epic of Gilgameš; Homer's Iliad, the Odyssey, Hesiod's Theogony and some Homeric Hymns. It studies poetic technique and probes further comparisons with Sanskrit, Old Norse, Polynesian, and Aztec mythology. It argues that Greek speakers are unlikely to have inherited the divine assembly from the Near East. Still, one can posit a long-term process of oral contact and communication fostered by common poetic structures and religious affinities. In a second part pursuing a mythological and religious comparison, the book concentrates on ideas about the cosmos and humankind, and on power dynamics within the pantheon as well as between gods and mortals. A focus on the head of the pantheon and on concepts of divine prerogatives illuminates culture-specific differences which can be related to historical socio-political discourses. The book develops a systematic approach to questions of cross-cultural literary comparison in the ancient world.

Tremper Longman III and Peter E. Enns edit this collection of 148 articles by over 90 contributors on Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Lamentations, Ruth and Esther.

Study of the wisdom literature in the Hebrew Bible and the contemporary cultures in the ancient Near Eastern world is evolving rapidly as old definitions and assumptions are questioned. Scholars are now interrogating the role of oral culture, the rhetoric of teaching and didacticism, the understanding of genre, and the relationship of these factors to the corpus of writings. The scribal culture in which wisdom literature arose is also under investigation, alongside questions of social context and character formation. This Companion serves as an essential guide to wisdom texts, a body of biblical literature with ancient origins that continue to have universal and timeless appeal. Reflecting new interpretive approaches, including virtue ethics and intertextuality, the volume includes essays by an international team of leading scholars. They engage with the texts, provide authoritative summaries of the state of the field, and open up to readers the exciting world of biblical wisdom.