This is the ninth volume of Babel und Bibel, an annual of ancient Near Eastern, Old Testament, and Semitic studies. The principal goal of the annual is to reveal the inherent relationship between Assyriology, Semitics, and biblical studies—a relationship that our predecessors comprehended and fruitfully explored but that is often neglected today. The title Babel und Bibel is intended to point to the possibility of fruitful collaboration among the three disciplines, in an effort to explore the various civilizations of the ancient Near East. This volume includes as a major portion of its contents selected papers from the 6th Biannual Meeting of the International Association for Comparative Semitics.

This is the eighth volume of Babel und Bibel, an annual of ancient Near Eastern, Old Testament, and Semitic studies. The principal goal of the annual is to reveal the inherent relationship between Assyriology, Semitics, and biblical studies—a relationship that our predecessors comprehended and fruitfully explored but that is often neglected today. The title Babel und Bibel is intended to point to the possibility of fruitful collaboration among the three disciplines, in an effort to explore the various civilizations of the ancient Near East. This volume is a festschrift for Joachim Krecher, Professor of Assyriology in the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster. Krecher is best known, perhaps, for his seminal Sumerische Kultlyrik, published already in 1966. This compendium includes 17 essays by friends and colleagues, all focusing on Sumerian language and literature.

This is the third volume of Babel & Bibel, an annual of ancient Near Eastern, Old Testament, and Semitic studies. The principal goal of the annual is to reveal the inherent relationship between Assyriology, Semitics, and biblical studies--a relationship that our predecessors comprehended and fruitfully explored but that is often neglected today. The title Babel & Bibel is intended to point to the possibility of fruitful collaboration among the three disciplines, in an effort to explore the various civilizations of the ancient Near East. The tripartite division of Babel & Bibel corresponds to its three principal spheres of interest: ancient Near Eastern, Old Testament, and Semitic studies. Contributions are further subdivided into articles, short notes, and reviews.

The year 2005 marked the 90th anniversary of the birth of Igor Diakonoff (1915-1999). A classical Semitist in educational background, Diakonoff was most influential in his principal field of research--Assyriology. However, Diakonoff was also broadly interested in various aspects of ancient Near Eastern studies, notably Mesopotamian history, Semitic and Afroasiatic linguistics, and biblical studies. Although not major domains of Diakonoff's scholarship, Biblical Hebrew and the ancient Near Eastern background of the Old Testament were areas of expertise that made him one of the leading figures of biblical studies in Russia. For several decades Diakonoff was a "live bridge" between ancient Near Eastern and Semitic scholars working in Russia and the international scholarly community. Fittingly, this volume of Babel & Bibel in memory of Diakonoff contains essays, short notes, and reviews by scholars from the Russian and international scholarly community on topics in ancient Near Eastern, Semitic and Afroasiatic, and Old Testament studies. The contributors include A. Archi, G. F. del Monte, G. del Olmo Lete, J.-M. Durand, B. R. Foster, P. Franzaroli, S. Loesov, J. Marzahn, J. Pasquali, W. Sommerfeld, K. Markina, N. Roudik, M. P. Streck, M. V. Tonietti, W. R. Garr, K. Jongeling, M. Seleznev, V. Blazek, M. Bulakh, T. Frolova, J. Huehnergard, R. M. Kerr, L. Kogan, A. Militarev, J. Sanmartin, G. Takacs, A. Zaborski, N. V. Koslova, S. Loesov, and L. M. Dreyer.

This is the third volume of Babel & Bibel, an annual of ancient Near Eastern, Old Testament, and Semitic studies. The principal goal of the annual is to reveal the inherent relationship between Assyriology, Semitics, and biblical studies—a relationship that our predecessors comprehended and fruitfully explored but that is often neglected today. The title Babel & Bibel is intended to point to the possibility of fruitful collaboration among the three disciplines, in an effort to explore the various civilizations of the ancient Near East. The tripartite division of Babel & Bibel corresponds to its three principal spheres of interest: ancient Near Eastern, Old Testament, and Semitic studies. Contributions are further subdivided into articles, short notes, and reviews.

This volume opens with an analysis of the biblical Flood story within its ancient Oriental context and with two essays devoted to the study of the Flood in Greek literature. Several essays are devoted to the interpretation of the biblical story in diverse ancient Jewish and Christian texts (Old Testament apocrypha, Gnostic mythology, patristic and rabbinic literature). The volume ends with a study about the interpretation of the Flood in the period of the Scientific Revolution and with an interpretation from the perspective of a twentieth-century psycho-analyst.

The Development of the Biblical Hebrew Vowels investigates the sound changes affecting the Proto-Northwest-Semitic vocalic phonemes and their reflexes in Tiberian Biblical Hebrew. Contrary to many previous approaches, Benjamin Suchard shows that these developments can all be described as phonetically regular sound laws. This confirms that despite its unique transmission history, Hebrew behaves like other languages in this regard. Many Hebrew sound changes have traditionally been explained as reflecting non-phonetic conditioning. These include the Canaanite Shift of *ā to *ō, tonic and pre-tonic lengthening, diphthong contraction, Philippi’s Law, the Law of Attenuation, and the apocope of short, unstressed vowels. By reconsidering reconstructions and re-evaluating phonetic conditions, this work shows how the Biblical Hebrew forms regularly derive from their Proto-Northwest-Semitic precursors.

This groundbreaking volume presents a new translation of the text and detailed interpretation of almost every word or phrase in the book of Judges, drawing from archaeology and iconography, textual versions, biblical parallels, and extrabiblical texts, many never noted before. Archaeology also serves to show how a story of the Iron II period employed visible ruins to narrate supposedly early events from the so-called "period of the Judges." The synchronic analysis for each unit sketches its characters and main themes, as well as other literary dynamics. The diachronic, redactional analysis shows the shifting settings of units as well as their development, commonly due to their inner-textual reception and reinterpretation. The result is a remarkably fresh historical-critical treatment of 1:1-10:5.

The current companion will offer a survey of the Afroasiatic, Dravidian, Indo-Aryan, and Turkic languages in contact with Iranian languages. Comparatively few of Iran's minority languages are well-documented or even widely known outside of a small cadre of specialists. A volume that organizes sketches of the non-Iranian languages of Iran offers a unique perspective on the history and structure of the Iranian language.