Ancient Near East

This book provides a new reading of the biblical book of Numbers in a commentary form. Mainstream readings have tended to see the book as a haphazard junkyard of material that connects Genesis-Leviticus with Deuteronomy (and Joshua) and that has been composed at a late stage in the history of ancien..

Ancient Near East: The Basics surveys the history of the ancient Middle East from the invention of writing to Alexander the Great’s conquest. The book introduces both the physical and intellectual environment of those times, the struggles of state-building and empire construction, and the dissent fr..

Organized by periods, kingdoms, and empires in ancient Near Eastern political history, this text interlaces social and cultural history with a political narrative. The emphasis on historical debates helps students understand how historians use evidence to create interpretations and that several diff..

This book provides a new interpretation of the Ugaritic Baal Cycle, an innovative approach to studying ancient Near Eastern literature within its political context. The book argues that the poem takes aim at the political-theological norms and uses the depiction of a divine world to educate its audi..

Being a Man is a formative work which reveals the myriad and complex negotiations for constructions of masculine identities in the greater ancient Near East and beyond. Through a juxtaposition of studies into Neo-Assyrian artistic representations and omens, biblical hymns and narrative, Hittite, Akk..

Land and Economy in Ancient Palestine..

Offering fascinating insights into the people and politics of the ancient near Eastern kingdoms, Trevor Bryce uses the letters of the five Great Kings as the focus of a fresh look at this turbulent and volatile region in the late Bronze Age...

This volume examines the meaning of this specific act in times of war. With examples drawn from Anatolia, Syria and Mesopotamia between the 3rd and 1st millennium BC, from prehistory to the Neo-Assyrian period, this fascinating study will be valuable to anyone interested in the dynamics of war in th..

In this volume, Brian Charles DiPalma examines masculinities in the court tales of Daniel as a test case for issues facing the burgeoning area of gender studies in the Hebrew Bible...

The articles in this collection cover the region extending from Italy to the Black Sea and to Egypt, over a period of seven centuries, with an emphasis on the considerable economic and social interaction between the West and the regions of the Eastern Mediterranean. They represent key works in the o..

This volume offers a collection of seminal essays by Keith Whitelam on the early history of ancient Palestine and the origins and emergence of Israel...

In this first book-length treatment of the subject, Benjamin Foster draws together over 40 years of research to offer an exhaustive survey of the Akkadian period, which saw the rise of the world’s first known empire. The book covers all aspects of the empire: its history, land and cities, arts, reli..