Ancient Near Eastern Bundle (30 vols.)

Ancient Near Eastern Texts brings together the most important historical, legal, mythological, liturgical, and secular texts of the ancient Near East, with the purpose of providing a rich contextual base for understanding the people, cultures, and literature of the Old Testament. A scholar of religious thought and biblical archaeology, James Pritchard recruited the foremost linguists, historians, and archaeologists to select and translate the texts. The goal, in his words, was "a better understanding of the likenesses and differences which existed between Israel and the surrounding cultures."

The Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible is the single major work of reference on the gods, angels, demons, spirits and semi-divine heroes whose names occur in the biblical books. First published in 1995 and chosen by Choice as Best Reference Work of 1996, it is now republished in a new extensively revised edition.

The Ugaritic Library contains the complete corpus of Ugaritic texts together with aids and indices to better illuminate these ancient writings and the Hebrew Bible. These include grammatical and lexical books to help the reader learn and read Ugaritic, translations of many of the important documents (with commentary), and volumes designed to help the Bible student easily locate the places where Ugaritic can shed some light on the text of the Hebrew Bible.

Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) publishes books intended to convey the finest biblical scholarship to students in college, university, and seminary courses, leaders in church and synagogue settings, and members of the general public interested in biblical study. The SBL offers these 16 volumes of Writings from the Ancient World to provide teachers, literary critics, historians, general readers, and students direct access to key ancient Near Eastern writings that date from the beginning of the Sumerian civilization to the age of Alexander the Great. The volumes typically offer historical and literary background to the writings, the original text and English translation, explanatory or textual notes, and a bibliography.

These ancient writings—letters, laws, government documents, poems, prayers and rituals—provide a glimpse into the social, economic and religious context of other civilizations before and during early biblical times.