This volume, in celebration of Peter Machinist, Hancock Professor of Hebrew and Other Oriental Languages at Harvard University, includes twenty-eight illuminating essays on ancient Near Eastern history and literature, which focus especially on the intersection of these fields. Contributors include one of Machinist’s teachers, several of his students, and numerous colleagues and friends. These essays probe topics for which Machinist’s work has often set new standards. And in the spirit of the honoree and his interests, these comparative studies encompass Babel, Bibel, and more. In them, Assyriologists contend with biblical cruxes and biblicists engage Assyriological research, while classicists and Hittitologists participate with considerations of their respective disciplines within a broad cross-cultural context. The volume is a must for anyone committed to the ongoing comparative study of the ancient Near East, and within that framework, the historical study of the Hebrew Bible.
Peter Machinist
David S. Vanderhooft and Abraham Winitzer
Bibliography of Peter Machinist
Fearful Symmetry: The Poetics, Genre, and Form of Lines 109–118, Tablet I in the Poem of Erra
Yoram Cohen
Menahem’s Reign Before the Assyrian Invasion (2 Kings 15:14–16)
Peter Dubovský
Ethnicity in the Assyrian Empire: A View from the Nisbe, (I): Foreigners and “Special” Inner Communities
Frederick Mario Fales
David and the Ark: A Jerusalem Festival Reflected in Royal Narrative
Daniel E. Fleming
Creation and the Divine Spirit in Babel and Bible: Reflections on mummu in Enūma eliš I 4 and rûaḥ in Genesis 1:2
Eckart Frahm
Niṣirti bārûti: une autre approche
Jean-Jacques Glassner
NB Administrative Terminology and Its Influence in Biblical Literature: Hebrew ארח;ה
Ronnie Goldstein
Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Literatures: A General Introduction
William W. Hallo
Between Elective Autocracy and Democracy: Formalizing Biblical Constitutional Theory
Baruch Halpern
Prosperity and Kingship in Psalms and Inscriptions
Mark W. Hamilton
Redactors, Rationalists, and (Bloodied) Rivers: Some Comments on the First Biblical Plague
John R. Huddlestun
“An Heir Created by Aššur”: Literary Observations on the Rassam Prism (A) of Ashurbanipal
Victor Avigdor Hurowitz*
Literary-Political Motifs in the Assyrian Royal Inscriptions: Measuring Continuity versus Change
Mario Liverani
Of Bears and Men: Thoughts on the End of Šulgi’s Reign and on the Ensuing Succession
Piotr Michalowski
A Hidden Anti-David Polemic in 2 Samuel 6:2
Nadav Naʾaman
The Prophet and the Augur at Tušḫan, 611 b.c.
Martti Nissinen
Assyria and Judean Identity: Beyond the Religionsgeschichtliche Schule
Eckart Otto
Psalm 22:16 and Its Sumerian and Akkadian Analogues
Shalom M. Paul
Do Ideas Travel Lightly?: Early Greek Concepts of Justice in Their Mediterranean Context
Kurt A. Raaflaub
The Rod that Smote Philistia: Isaiah 14:28–32
J. J. M. Roberts
Errant Oxen Or: The Goring Ox Redux
Martha T. Roth
Jephthah: Chutzpah and Overreach in a Hebrew Judge
Jack M. Sasson
The Remembrance of Kings Past: The Persona of King Ibbi-Sin
T. M. Sharlach
Hittite Gods in Egyptian Attire: A Case Study in Cultural Transmission
Itamar Singer*
How Did Šulgi and Išbi-Erra Ascend to Heaven?
Piotr Steinkeller
“War Crimes” in Amos’s Oracles Against the Nations (Amos 1:3–2:3)
Nili Wazana
Grammar and Context: Enki & Ninhursag ll–3 and a Rare Sumerian Construction
Christopher Woods
Towards a Biography of Kish: Notes on Urbanism and Comparison
Norman Yoffee
Index of Authors
Index of Scripture
“These contributions embody one and all a consummate scholarship.”
