This handbook proves itself an indispensable tool for anyone committed to a deep reading of the biblical text.

This easy-to-understand book includes everything you need to learn Biblical Aramaic, including a lexicon of Biblical Aramaic, the complete annotated text of all 269 Bible verses written in Aramaic, and chapter exercises with an answer answer key.

The author examines a number of the published Old Aramaic inscriptions, and compares them with the Aramaic of Daniel according to a broad-based set of criteria; detailed literary, grammatical and lexicographical comparisons build a cumulative case for questioning both the unified character of Old Aramaic and the supposedly late character of numerous features in Old Aramaic. The author thus contributes to the discussion of whether Old Aramaic texts can be used for understanding the Aramaic of Daniel, on the one hand, while contributing to an evaluation of the debate concerning the origin of the Aramaic of Daniel on the other.

"An emerging field of study that explores the Hispanic minority in the United States, Latino Studies is enriched by an interdisciplinary perspective. Historians, sociologists, anthropologists, political scientists, demographers, linguists, as well as religion, ethnicity, and culture scholars, among others, bring a varied, multifaceted approach to the understanding of a people whose roots are all over the Americas and whose permanent home is north of the Rio Grande. Oxford Bibliographies in Latino Studies offers an authoritative, trustworthy, and up-to-date intellectual map to this ever-changing discipline."--Editorial page.

In Ancient Israel Lester L. Grabbe sets out to summarize what we know through a survey of sources and how we know it by a discussion of methodology and by evaluating the evidence. The most basic question about the history of ancient Israel, how do we know what we know, leads to the fundamental questions of Grabbe's work: what are the sources for the history of Israel and how do we evaluate them? How do we make them 'speak' to us through the fog of centuries? Grabbe focuses on original sources, including inscriptions, papyri, and archaeology. He examines the problems involved in historical methodology and deals with the major issues surrounding the use of the biblical text when writing a history of this period. Ancient Israel provides an enlightening overview and critique of current scholarly debate. It can therefore serve as a 'handbook' or reference-point for those wanting a catalogue of original sources, scholarship, and secondary studies. Grabbe's clarity of style makes this book eminently accessible not only to students of biblical studies and ancient history but also to the interested lay reader. For this new edition the entire text has been reworked to take account of new archaeological discoveries and theories. There is a major expansion to include a comprehensive coverage of David and Solomon and more detailed information on specific kings of Israel throughout. Grabbe has also added material on the historicity of the Exodus, and provided a thorough update of the material on the later bronze age.

For beginning students who are already familiar with Hebrew. Greenspahn includes all Aramaic passages in the Old Testament, and introduces other Aramaic texts such as ancient inscriptions, the Dead Sea Scrolls, rabbinic literature, and quotations in the New Testament. There are also paradigms, a complete glossary, a list of resources for further study, and practice exercises for each chapter. There is no index. Annotation copyrighted by Book News Inc., Portland, OR.

This dictionary of the Babylonian Talmud is an important tool for the beginner, as well as the scholar. This complete Talmudic dictionary presents the words as they appear in the text, without the need to know the word root.

From the eighth to second centuries BCE, ancient Israel and Judah were threatened and dominated by a series of foreign empires. This traumatic history prompted serious theological reflection and recalibration, specifically to address the relationship between God and foreign kings. This relationship provided a crucial locus for thinking theologically about empire, for if the rival sovereignty possessed and expressed by kings such as Sennacherib of Assyria, Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, Cyrus of Persia, and Antiochus IV Epiphanes was to be rendered meaningful, it somehow had to be assimilated into a Yahwistic theological framework. In King of Kings, Justin Pannkuk tells the stories of how the biblical texts modeled the relationship between God and foreign kings at critical junctures in the history of Judah and the development of this discourse across nearly six centuries. Pannkuk finds that the biblical authors consistently assimilated the power and activities of the foreign kings into exclusively Yahwistic interpretive frameworks by constructing hierarchies of agency and sovereignty that reaffirmed YHWH's position of ultimate supremacy over the kings. These acts of assimilation performed powerful symbolic work on the problems presented by empire by framing them as expressions of YHWH's own power and activity. This strategy had the capacity to render imperial domination theologically meaningful, but it also came with theological consequences: with each imperial encounter, the ideologies of rule and political aggression to which the biblical texts responded actually shaped the biblical discourse about YHWH. With its broad historical sweep, engagement with important theological themes, and accessible prose, King of Kings provides a rich resource for students and scholars working in biblical studies, theology, and ancient history. It is an important resource for understanding how the vagaries of history inform our ongoing negotiations with concepts of the divine.