The Hebrew Bible is filled with references to people, places, deities, customs, beliefs, practices and traditions of the ancient Near Eastern world. Egyptians, Assyrians, Canaanites, Hittites, and Babylonians appear as central figures in many biblical narratives. Thus it is fitting that students of the Bible turn to the literary remains of these civilizations to understand how they shaped the biblical world.
The Context of Scripture is an impressive three-volume collection of these ancient Near Eastern writings in English translations. Each translation is accompanied by cross references to related biblical texts, allowing users of the electronic edition to easily search for ancient writings that relate to a given passage. The translations also sport extensive notes and thorough bibliographies, to help the student understand the texts and provide avenues for further study.
Readers of biblical commentaries will have heard of many of the works contained in this set already. Commentaries on Genesis frequently make reference to the Babylonian creation and flood stories found in the Enuma Elish and the Epic of Gilgamesh. Commentaries on the other Pentateuch volumes often draw comparisons with early law codes, like the Laws of Hammurabi, or with the Hittite suzerainty treaties. The Song of Songs is often compared with Egyptian love poems, as Proverbs is with works of Egyptian wisdom literature, like the Instruction of Any and The Instruction of Amenemope. The Ugaritic Baal cycle is a treasure trove of information on Canaanite religion as well as containing enlightening linguistic parallels to biblical Hebrew, and makes regular appearances in the biblical commentaries. Commentaries on Chronicles and Ezra point to the edict recorded on the Cyrus Cylinder, which contains a striking parallel to Cyrus’ edict contained in the biblical text, and so on.
