The Aramaic papyri found on the island of Elephantine, Egypt (ancient Yeb, opposite Syene) come from the fifth century BC. They include letters, personal archives, public archives, the 'Words of Ahikar,' the Behistun inscription, accounts, and lists. Cowley provides here the Aramaic transcriptions and English translations for all the texts available to him. In this edition, an updated bibliography is provided.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

The documents here published are all instructions of an official or semi-official nature issued by the Persian satrap of Egypt or other high-ranking Persian officers to subordinate Persian administrative officers in Egypt; only one contains instructions from the satrap to Persian and Babylonian officers commanding districts on the way from Babylonia to Syria. All are drafted in the form of private letters, but, thanks to the high position of the senders, several of them refer to or are concerned with affairs of considerable public importance. The letters deal for the most part with a single subject, the administration of the domain-lands in Egypt held by highly placed Persian officers and the difficulties arising out of the mutual relations of the local officers of the administration to one another and to the subject population. The problems raised in them are the collection and transport of the revenues of these domains, the assignment of a father's revenues to a son who has succeeded to his office, the transfer of a domain to a deceased tenant's son, a summons to appear before the satrap, measures to be taken for the protection of the satrap's property and for recruiting additional staff for employment on his estate, the release of soldiers wrongfully seized and detained, an order to a negligent officer to carry out his instructions, the reprimand of an officer who has disobeyed an order to assign or transfer some men to another officer and has, moreover, been guilty of robbery, assault and battery, and the punishment of servants or slaves who have robbed the officer in charge of them and run away. --from the Introduction

This collection of papers from members of the 'Use of the Old Testament in the New Testament' seminar (held at St Deinid's, Hawarden, Wales) has been commissioned to honour its retiring chairperson, J.L. North. It includes contributions by Michael Goulder (Isaiah 61), Joel Marcus (Matthew), Maurice Casey (Christology), George Brooke (Parables), Judith Lieu (John), Peter Doble (Acts), Morna Hooker (Philippians), John O'Neill (Galatians), Ivor Jones (2 Thessalonians), Martin Menken (Matthew) and Steve Moyise (Intertextuality). BLURB AS REWRITTEN BY PRD 11 JANUARY 2000: It is well known, but not always appreciated that the 'Bible' of the earliest Christians was the Old Testament. How did the New Testament writers justify their faith in the risen Messiah from these Jewish scriptures? In this book, distinguished biblical scholars supply answers to these questions, both in general terms and from specific examples. Under review come individual New Testament writers (Matthew, Paul, John) and important themes (the Anointed One, monogamy and divorce), while crucial passages such as John 11, Isaiah 66 and Revelation 12 are put under the microscope. This collection demonstrates the ingenuity and vitality of early Christian scriptural exegesis, and offers the reader an up to date picture of the most recent research in one of the central issues of New Testament literary and theological study.