Baal and the Politics of Poetry provides a thoroughly new interpretation of the Ugaritic Baal Cycle that simultaneously inaugurates an innovative approach to studying ancient Near Eastern literature within the political context of its production. The book argues that the poem, written in the last decades of the Bronze Age, takes aim at the reigning political-theological norms of its day and uses the depiction of a divine world to educate its audience about the nature of human politics. By attuning ourselves to the specific historical context of this one poem, we can develop more nuanced appreciation of how poetry, politics, and religion have interacted—in antiquity, and beyond.

Sixty-six colleagues, friends, and former students of Edward L. Greenstein present essays honoring him upon his retirement. Throughout Greenstein's half-century career he demonstrated expertise in a host of areas astonishing in its breadth and depth, and each of the essays in these two volumes focuses on an area of particular interest to him. Volume 1 includes essays on ancient Near Eastern studies, Biblical Hebrew and Northwest Semitic languages, and biblical law and narrative. Volume 2 includes essays on biblical wisdom and poetry, biblical reception and exegesis, and postmodern readings of the Bible.

Essays explaining diverse methods and reading strategies, providing a dependable guide to understanding the Book of Genesis.

An award-winning Oxford history professor “makes a forceful argument and tells a story with great verve” (The Wall Street Journal)—that the West is, and always has been, truly global. “Those archaic ‘Western Civ’ classes so many of us took in college should be updated, argues Quinn, [who] invites us to . . . revel in a richer, more polyglot inheritance.”—The Boston Globe A FINANCIAL TIMES AND ECONOMIST BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR (SO FAR) In How the World Made the West, Josephine Quinn poses perhaps the most significant challenge ever to the “civilizational thinking” regarding the origins of Western culture—that is, the idea that civilizations arose separately and distinctly from one another. Rather, she locates the roots of the modern West in everything from the law codes of Babylon, Assyrian irrigation, and the Phoenician art of sail to Indian literature, Arabic scholarship, and the metalworking riders of the Steppe, to name just a few examples. According to Quinn, reducing the backstory of the modern West to a narrative that focuses on Greece and Rome impoverishes our view of the past. This understanding of history would have made no sense to the ancient Greeks and Romans themselves, who understood and discussed their own connections to and borrowings from others. They consistently presented their own culture as the result of contact and exchange. Quinn builds on the writings they left behind with rich analyses of other ancient literary sources like the epic of Gilgamesh, holy texts, and newly discovered records revealing details of everyday life. A work of breathtaking scholarship, How the World Made the West also draws on the material culture of the times in art and artifacts as well as findings from the latest scientific advances in carbon dating and human genetics to thoroughly debunk the myth of the modern West as a self-made miracle. In lively prose and with bracing clarity, as well as through vivid maps and color illustrations, How the World Made the West challenges the stories the West continues to tell about itself. It redefines our understanding of the Western self and civilization in the cosmopolitan world of today.

Write That They May Read is a collection of essays written in honor of our mentor, friend, and fellow scholar, Professor Alan R. Millard. Respectful of his contribution to our understanding of writing and literacy in the ancient biblical world, all the essays deal with some aspect of this issue, ranging in scope from archeological artifacts that need to be “read,” to early evidence of writing in Israel’s world, to the significance of reading and writing in the Bible, including God’s own literacy, to the production of books in the ancient world, and the significance of metaphorical branding of God’s people with his name. The contributors are distributed among Professor Millard’s peers and colleagues in a variety of institutions, his own students, and students of his students. They represent a variety of disciplines including biblical archeology, Egyptology, Assyriology, Hebrew and other Northwest Semitic texts, and the literature of the Bible, and reside in North America, Japan, the United Kingdom, Denmark, and Germany. Write That They May Read contains contributions by: Section 1: Artifacts and Minimalist Literacy 1. “See That You May Understand”: Artifact Literacy—The Twin-cup Libation Vessels from Khirbet Qeiyafa Gerald Klingbeil, Research Professor of Old Testament and Ancient Near Eastern Studies, Andrews University Martin Klingbeil, Professor of Biblical Studies and Archaeology, and Associate Director, Institute of Archaeology Southern Adventist University 2. Ketiv-Qere: The Writing and Reading of EA 256 and Its Place in Reflecting the Realia of Power and Polity in the LBA–IA Golan and Peripheries Timothy M. Crow, Senior Lecturer in History, University of Akron; Professional Fellow Old Testament, Ashland Theological Seminary 3. Another Inscribed Arrowhead in the British Museum Terrence C. Mitchell†. Former Keeper of Western Asiatic Antiquities, The British Museum, London, England 4. Earliest Literary Allusions to Homer and the Pentateuch from Ischia in Italy and Jerusalem Paul J. N. Lawrence, Translation Consultant, Summer Institute of Linguistics International 5. The Etymology of Hebrew lōg and the Identity of Shavsha the Scribe Yoshiyuki Muchiki, Professor of Biblical Theology, Japan Bible Seminary, Tokyo Section 2: Artifacts and Official Literacy 6. The Writing/Reading of the Stone Tablet Covenant in the Light of the Writing/Reading/Hearing of the Silver Tablet Treaty Gordon Johnston, Professor of Old Testament, Dallas Theological Seminary 7. For Whose Eyes? The Divine Origins and Function of the Two Tablets of the Israelite Covenant Daniel I. Block, Gunther H. Knoedler Professor Emeritus of Old Testament, Wheaton College 8. Write That They May Judge? Applying Written Law in Biblical Israel Jonathan Burnside, Professor of Biblical Law, Law School, University of Bristol. 9. “And Samuel Wrote in the Book” (1 Samuel 10:25) and His Apology in First Samuel 1–15 Wolfgang Ertl, Dozent am Bibelseminar Bonn, Bornheim/Germany; Associate Professor of Old Testament, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary 10. “For the one who will read it aloud will be able to run with it” (Habakkuk 2:2c) David Toshio Tsumura, Professor of Old Testament, Japan Bible Seminar Section 3: The Rise of Literary Literacy 11. The History and Pre-History of the Hebrew Language in the West Semitic Literary Tradition Richard E. Averbeck, Professor of Old Testament and Semitic Languages, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School 12. Divine Action in the Hebrew Bible: “Borrowing” from Ancient Near Eastern Cultures and “Inspiration” C. John Collins, Professor of Old Testament, Covenant Theological Seminary 13. Encoding and Decoding Culture Jens Bruun Kofoed, Professor of Old Testament, Fjellhaug International University College, 14. No Books, No Authors: Literary Production in a Hearing-Dominant Culture John H. Walton, Professor of Old Testament, Wheaton College 15. The Discovery of the Book of the Law in 2 Kings 22:8–10 in the Light of the Literary Renaissance of the Eighth to Seventh Centuries in the Ancient Near East James K. Hoffmeier, Emeritus Professor of Old Testament and Near Eastern Archaeology, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School 16. “Read This Torah” (Deuteronomy 31:11): The Importance and Function of Israel’s Primary Scripture in Early Spiritual Growth David C. Deuel, Academic Dean Emeritus, The Master’s Academy International 17. What is a “Messianic Text”? The Uruk Prophecy and the Old Testament Ernest C. Lucas, Vice-Principal Emeritus, Bristol Baptist College, UK 18. “Joshua 24 and Psalm 81 as Intertexts” Cheryl Eaton, PhD Candidate, Trinity College, Bristol Section 4: Metaphorical Literacy 20. Belonging to YHWH: Real and Imagined Inscribed Seals in Biblical Tradition Carmen Joy Imes, Associate Professor of Old Testament, Prairie College, Three Hills, Alberta 21. Reading the Eye: Optic Metaphorical Agency in Deuteronomic Law A. Rahel Wells, Associate Professor of Biblical Studies, Andrews University 5. Epilogue 22. Literacy and Postmodern Fallacies Richard S. Hess, Distinguished Professor of Old Testament and Semitic Languages, Denver Seminary Abstract: 23. In Praise of a Venerable Scribe: A Tribute to Alan R. Millard Edwin M. Yamauchi, Professor of History Emeritus, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio [with contributions from Daniel I. Block and Paul J. N. Lawrence]

Explores the interaction between Greece and the Ancient Near East through stories about the gods and their relationships with humankind.

Antiguo Oriente (abbreviated as AntOr) is the annual, peer-reviewed, scholarly journal published by the Center of Studies of Ancient Near Eastern History (CEHAO), Catholic University of Argentina.

In this urgent outpouring of American voices, our poets speak to us as they shelter in place, addressing our collective fear, grief, and hope from eloquent and diverse individual perspectives. “One of the best books of poetry of the year . . . Quinn has accomplished something dizzying here: arranged a stellar cast of poets . . . It is what all anthologies must be: comprehensive, contradictory, stirring.” —The Millions **Featuring 107 poets, from A to Z—Julia Alvarez to Matthew Zapruder—with work in between by Jericho Brown, Billy Collins, Fanny Howe, Ada Limón, Sharon Olds, Tommy Orange, Claudia Rankine, Vijay Seshadri, and Jeffrey Yang** As the novel coronavirus and its devastating effects began to spread in the United States and around the world, Alice Quinn reached out to poets across the country to see if, and what, they were writing under quarantine. Moved and galvanized by the response, the onetime New Yorker poetry editor and recent former director of the Poetry Society of America began collecting the poems arriving in her inbox, assembling this various, intimate, and intricate portrait of our suddenly altered reality. In these pages, we find poets grieving for relatives they are separated from or recovering from illness themselves, attending to suddenly complicated household tasks or turning to literature for strength, considering the bravery of medical workers or working their own shifts at the hospital, and, as the Black Lives Matter movement has swept the globe, reflecting on the inequities in our society that amplify sorrow and demand our engagement. From fierce and resilient to wistful, darkly humorous, and emblematically reverent about the earth and the vulnerability of human beings in frightening times, the poems in this collection find the words to describe what can feel unspeakably difficult and strange, providing wisdom, companionship, and depths of feeling that enliven our spirits. A portion of the advance for this book was generously donated by Alice Quinn and the poets to Chefs for America, an organization helping feed communities in need across the country during the pandemic.

In this collection, Paul Raboff pleads, as an advocate for mankind, against the sufferings and humiliations found in the great "injustice" of love, yet, at the same time, celebrates its joys and hilarities. Partly modeled on the Latin classical love poets, Catullus and Propertius, and partly on adversarial biblical commentary, the events are transcribed to the moral and physical landscape of contemporary Israel. From Baal to Ashtoreth evokes the clashing of egos in the love experience; two very earthly Gods as models of predatory human behavior. With imagery strongly identified with the Jewish Bible and the classical world, ironically set against modern values, the author interweaves the idea of physical love with the anguish of emotional love.

This interdisciplinary collection of essays addresses idolatry, a contested issue that has given rise to both religious accusations and heated scholarly disputes. Idol Anxiety brings together insightful new statements from scholars in religious studies, art history, philosophy, and musicology to show that idolatry is a concept that can be helpful in articulating the ways in which human beings interact with and conceive of the things around them. It includes both case studies that provide examples of how the concept of idolatry can be used to study material objects and more theoretical interventions. Among the book's highlights are a foundational treatment of the second commandment by Jan Assmann; an essay by W.J.T. Mitchell on Nicolas Poussin that will be a model for future discussions of art objects; a groundbreaking consideration of the Islamic ban on images by Mika Natif; and a lucid description by Jean-Luc Marion of his cutting-edge phenomenology of the visible.