The most impressive legacy of the Dynasty of Akkade (ca. 2310-2160 B.C.E.) was the widespread, popular legends of its kings. Dr. Westenholz offers an annotated edition of all the known legends of the Akkadian kings, with transliteration, translation, and commentary. Of particular interest to biblical scholars is the inclusion of "The Birth Legend of Sargon," which is often compared to Moses in Exodus.

This book takes a bold new approach to the prehistory of Homeric epic, arguing for a fresh understanding of how Near Eastern influence worked.

A fascinating look at ancient Middle Eastern religious belief and practice

During a moment of exponential growth and change in the fields of biblical and ancient Near Eastern studies, it is an opportune time to take stock of the state wisdom and wisdom literature with twenty-three essays honoring the consummate Weisheitslehrer, Professor Choon Leong Seow, Vanderbilt, Buffington, Cupples Chair in Divinity and Distinguished Professor of Hebrew Bible at Vanderbilt University. This Festschrift is tightly focused around wisdom themes, and all of the essays are written by senior scholars in the field. They represent not only the great diversity of approaches in the field of wisdom and wisdom literature, but also the remarkable range of interests and methods that have characterized Professor Seow's own work throughout the decades, including the theology of the wisdom literature, the social world of Ecclesiastes, the history of consequences of the book of Job, the poetry of the Psalms, and Northwest Semitic Inscriptions, just to name a few.

A critical resource that traces the reign of Sargon in context Josette Elayi's book is the only existing biography of Sargon II, the famous Assyrian king, who was a megalomaniac and a warlord. Elayi addresses such important questions, including what was his precise role in the disappearance of the kingdom of Israel; how did Sargon II succeed in enlarging the borders of the Assyrian Empire by several successful campaigns; how did he organize his empire (administration, trade, agriculture, libraries), and what was the so-called sin of Sargon? Features: Interpretations of decisive events during the life and reign of the Assyrian king An evaluation of Sargon II s reign Maps, tables, and illustrations

An ever-growing number of Christians are becoming more and more uncomfortable with the tenets of the church, the stories of the Bible, and the church’s worldview. Statistics show that these feelings easily escalate into a crisis of faith, and for now their predicament is being resolved by leaving the church. This book will certainly help dealing with the crisis by showing that the language of faith is built by a web of metaphors taken from the Ancient Near East. We do not need to take biblical language literally, but as parables for human values in need to be assessed critically.

This book explores figurative images of the womb and the simile of a woman in labor from the Hebrew Bible, problematizing previous interpretations that present these as disparate images and showing how their interconnectivity embodies relationship with YHWH. In the Hebrew Bible, images of the womb and the pregnant body in labor do not co-occur despite being grounded in an image of a whole pregnant female body; the pregnant body is instead fragmented into these two constituent parts, and scholars have continued to interpret these images separately with no discussion of their interconnectivity. In this book, Langton explores the relationship between these images, inviting readers into a wider conversation on how the pregnant body functions as a means to an end, a place to access and seek a relationship with YHWH. Readers are challenged and asked to rethink how these images have been interpreted within feminist scholarship, with womb imagery depicting YHWH’s care for creation or performing the acts of a midwife, and the pregnant body in labor as a depiction of crisis. Langton explores select texts depicting these images, focusing on the corporeal experience and discussing direct references and allusions to the physicality of a pregnant body within these texts. This approach uncovers ancient and current androcentric ideology which dictates that conception, gestation, and birth must be controlled not by the female body, but by YHWH. The Womb and the Simile of the Woman in Labor in the Hebrew Bible is of interest to students and scholars working on the Hebrew Bible, gender in the Bible and the Near East more broadly, and feminist biblical criticism.

Ezekiel's symbolic thinking is an integrative rationality in which reason is regarded as operating within the heart through the empowerment and guidance of the Spirit.

Celibacy is a commitment to remain unmarried and to renounce sexual relations, for a limited period or for a lifetime. Such a commitment places an individual outside human society in its usual form, and thus questions arise: What significance does such an individual, and such a choice, have for the human family and community as a whole? Is celibacy possible? Is there a socially constructive role for celibacy? These questions guide Dale Launderville, OSB, in his study of celibacy in the ancient cultures of Israel, Mesopotamia, and Greece prior to Hellenism and the rise of Christianity. Launderville focuses especially on literary witnesses, because those enduring texts have helped to shape modern attitudes and can aid us in understanding the factors that may call forth the practice of celibacy in our own time. Readers will discover how celibacy fits within a context of relationships, and what kinds of relationships thus support a healthy and varied society, one aware of and oriented to its cosmic destiny. Dale Launderville, OSB, is professor of theology at Saint John's University School of Theology 'eminary, Collegeville, Minnesota. He is the author of Piety and Politics: The Dynamics of Royal Authority in Homeric Greece, Biblical Israel, and Old Babylonian Mesopotamia (Eerdmans, 2003) and Spirit and Reason: The Embodied Character of Ezekiel's Symbolic Thinking (Baylor University Press, 2007).