Canonical Compositions from the Biblical World (The Context of Scripture, vol. 1)
Overview
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.
Volume I, Canonical Compositions from the Biblical World, is devoted to 'literary' texts: those responses to the world about them by which the creative minds of antiquity sought to come to terms with their environment, real or imaginary.
- Cross references to related Biblical text
- Extensive notes and bibliographies
- Ideal for students and pastors
Top Highlights
“I understand lightning which not even the heavens know,” (Page 251)
“Baʿlu, the principal weather god of the Levantine peoples” (Page 242)
“one must still ask why these watery forces were seen as the enemy of the creator deity” (Page 242)
“the Baʿlu myth had a long prehistory among the Amorite peoples” (Page 241)
“Plausibly, therefore, Yammu’s palace was in the sea, while Baʿlu’s dwelling was on the heights of Ṣapānu” (Page 242)
…the three volumes in COS will be reliable and frequently used companions of Old Testament scholars in the next fifty years. Biblical commentaries and journal articles will regularly refer to them.
—Ralph W. Klein, Currents, 2001
…an up-to-date and indispensable collection of Near Eastern literature.
—William M. Schniedewind, Religious Studies Review, 2001
Given the high quality of this compendium, one of the editors' hopes for this series would seem to be well founded, namely, that The Context of Scripture will become a standard reference work in college, seminary, and university libraries well into the twenty-first century.
—Gary N. Knoppers, Review of Biblical Literature, April 2000
- Title: The Context of Scripture, Volume One: Canonical Compositions from the Biblical World
- Author: William W. Hallo
- Series: Context of Scripture
- Publisher: Brill
- Print Publication Date: 1997
- Logos Release Date: 2004
- Era: era:Contemporary
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
- Subjects: Bible. O.T. › Extra-canonical parallels; Middle Eastern literature › Relation to the Old Testament; Bible. O.T. › History of contemporary events--Sources; Middle Eastern literature › Translations into English
- ISBNs: 9789004106185, 9004106189
- Resource ID: LLS:8.20.4
- Resource Type: text.monograph.ancient-manuscript.translation
- Metadata Last Updated: 2022-10-05T16:48:00Z
William W. Hallo is the William M. Laffan Professor of Assyriology and Babylonian Literature and Curator of the Babylonian Collection at Yale University. He holds degrees from Harvard, Leiden, and Chicago. He is author or co-author of Seals and Seal Impressions (2001), The Ancient Near East: a History (1998, 1971), Origins (1997), The Book of the People (1991), Scripture in Context (4 vols. 1980-1991), Heritage: Civilization and the Jews (2 vols. 1984), The Tablets of Ebla (1984), Sumerian Archival Texts (1973), The Exaltation of Inanna (1968), and Early Mesopotamian Royal Titles (1957).
K. Lawson Younger, Jr., Ph.D. (1988) at the University of Sheffield is Professor of Old Testament, Semitic Languages and Ancient Near Eastern History at Trinity International University -- Divinity School, Deerfield, Illinois. He is the author of Ancient Near Eastern Conquest Accounts: A Study of Ancient Near Eastern and Biblical History Writing (1990), co-editor of Mesopotamia and the Bible (2002), as well as numerous scholarly articles and reviews.