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Filling a significant gap in contemporary criticism of recent prose fiction, this book offers a provocative analysis of the work of Nobel Laureate Olga Tokarczuk, situating her output in comparative contexts. The chapters making up the volume range from myth-critical focused readings to interdisciplinary and intercultural perspectives. Tokarczuk’s fiction is explored as mythopoeic and heterotopian experimentation, as well as being read alongside other arts and other authors of various national and linguistic backgrounds. This wide-ranging collection is the first monograph on Tokarczuk in English.
The monograph Signs from Silence: Ur of the first Sumerians tells the story of the Sumerian city of Ur at the beginning of the third pre-Christian millennium (c. 2,900–2,700). In terms of research focusing on the emergence of one of the first statehood foci of human history—the pristine state of ancient Mesopotamia—, the author takes up evidence on a critical phase of early Mesopotamian social development. At the beginning of the third pre-Christian millennium, the men and women of Ur took up actions that decided whether the material and spiritual heritage of the preceding Late Uruk cultural-development phase (c. 3,500–3,200), when the first state, organized religion, sciences and th...
On a primary level, the author seeks to answer the question, what is the best interpretation of הדעת טוב ורע. "The Knowledge of Good and Evil," in Gen 2:9, 17; 3:5, and 3:22? In Gen 3:5 and 3:22, this knowledge is said to be possessed by YHWH and the divine beings. This study analyzes the permutations of ) טוב"good") and רעע ("evil/bad") in the Hebrew Bible, with a majority focus in Genesis and the Deuteronomistic History and with a focus upon those textual instances in which YHWH has influence over 'good' and 'bad/evil.' Due to the results of the data, the author brings in a second level of discussion that focuses upon the hermeneutical principle of divine retribution as a s...
This book initiates the reader into the study of Akkadian literature from ancient Babylonia and Assyria. With this one relatively short volume, the novice reader will develop the literary competence necessary to read and interpret Akkadian texts in translation and will gain a broad familiarity with the major genres and compositions in the language. The first part of the book presents introductory discussions of major critical issues, organized under four key rubrics: tablets, scribes, compositions, and audiences. Here, the reader will find descriptions of the tablets used as writing material; the training scribes received and the institutional contexts in which they worked; the general chara...
In The Solar Nature of Yahweh: Reconsidering the Identity of the Ancient Israelite Deity, the original nature of the chief god of the Hebrew Bible, Yahweh, is reexamined. Daniel Sarlo challenges the current consensus that Yahweh was initially a storm god by examining the relevant biblical texts and comparing them with Ancient Near Eastern texts, ultimately arguing that Yahweh was a solar deity. The implication of this research is that Yahweh was not a minor god who gradually accumulated characteristics to become the head of the ancient Israelite pantheon, but rather a significant god from the very beginning, or at least before the inception of the United Monarchy.
In the week between July 21 and 25, 2014, the University of Warsaw hosted more than three hundred Assyriologists from all over the world. In the course of five days, nearly 150 papers were read in three (and sometimes four) parallel sessions. Many of them were delivered within the framework of nine thematic workshops. The publication of most of these panels is underway, in separate volumes. As is usually the case, the academic sessions were accompanied by many opportunities for social interaction among the participants, and there was time to enjoy the historical and cultural benefits of Warsaw. Special honor was accorded to two American Assyriologists whose origins can be traced to Warsaw, P...
Jewish temples stood in Jerusalem for nearly one thousand years and were a dominant feature in the life of the ancient Judeans throughout antiquity. This volume strives to obtain a diachronic and topical cross-section of central features of the varied aspects of the Jewish temples that stood in Jerusalem, one that draws on and incorporates different disciplinary and methodological viewpoints. Ten contributions are included in this volume by: Gary A. Anderson; Simeon Chavel; Avraham Faust; Paul M. Joyce; Yuval Levavi; Risa Levitt; Eyal Regev; Lawrence H. Schiffman; Jeffrey Stackert; Caroline Waerzeggers, edited by Tova Ganzel and Shalom E. Holtz.
Religion is closely linked to social development as it often serves as the ideological fundament of a society and one of the foremost expressions of its culture. The articles in this volume are devoted to the study of religious crisis in Anqituity and deal with these pheonomena in the Ancient Near East, Rome, Greece, China and India.
The city of Ur—now modern Tell el-Muqayyar in southern Iraq, also called Ur of the Chaldees in the Bible—was one of the most important Sumerian cities in Mesopotamia during the Early Dynastic Period in the first half of the third millennium BCE. The city is known for its impressive wealth and artistic achievements, evidenced by the richly decorated objects found in the so-called Royal Cemetery, which was excavated by the British Museum and the University of Pennsylvania from 1922 until 1934. Ur was also the cult center of the moon god, and during the twenty-first century BCE, it was the capital of southern Mesopotamia. With contributions from both established and rising Assyriologists fr...
Resheph was quite a popular god in the 3rd and 2nd millennia BC - especially in Syria - but during the 1st millennium his cult became extinct. Finally it was only maintained in several peripheral and isolated sites, such as in the Palmyra desert and in Cyprus. Maciej M. Munnich presents the written sources which mentioned Resheph and analyzes the features of Resheph's cult. He emphasizes that there is no confirmation for the theory that Resheph was a lord of the netherworld. Resheph was a belligerent, aggressive god who used diseases to attack people, but who could also heal. Because of the long period of the cult and the geographical range, one can notice some local features: In Egypt, for instance, Resheph originally was venerated as the deity supporting the Pharaoh in battles, but then he was summoned mainly because of illness and everyday needs.