The Late Third Millennium BCE in the Upper Orontes Valley, Syria: Ceramics, Chronology and Cultural Connections. By Melissa A. Kennedy. Ancient Near Eastern Studies Supplement 46. Peeters: Leuven, 2015. Pp. xxi + 495 + 93 figures + 129 tables. $135 (cloth).

2020 ◽  
Vol 79 (2) ◽  
pp. 374-378
Author(s):  
Lynn Welton
Keyword(s):  
Near Eastern ◽  
Third Millennium ◽  
Third Millennium Bce ◽  
Cultural Connections ◽  
Near Eastern Studies

Introduction

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Sara J. Milstein
Keyword(s):  
Biblical Law ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
Form And Function ◽  
The Third ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Third Millennium ◽  
Third Millennium Bce ◽  
The Law ◽  
And Function

The law collection genre is rooted in Mesopotamia, beginning with the Sumerian Laws of Ur-Namma in the third millennium BCE. Over the next millennium, similar collections were produced in Mesopotamia, the most famous being the Laws of Hammurabi. The Assyrians and Hittites also put this genre to use in their own contexts. It has long been taken for granted that certain biblical units—specifically, Exodus 20–23, Deuteronomy 12–26, and Priestly law—likewise reflect “native” adaptations of the Near Eastern genre. Close examination of these texts, however, indicates that they are closer in form and function to the Mesopotamian genre of legal-pedagogical texts. Mesopotamian scribes produced a wide range of legal-oriented school-texts, including fictional cases, sample contracts, and legal phrasebooks. When Exodus 20–23 and Deuteronomy 12–26 are examined against the backdrop of these Mesopotamian legal-pedagogical texts, the pedagogical roots of what scholars call “biblical law” begin to emerge.

Franz Rosenthal’s Half an Autobiography

2014 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 34-105
Author(s):  
Hinrich Biesterfeldt
Keyword(s):  
Geographical Location ◽  
The United States ◽  
Past Century ◽  
Yale University ◽  
Islamic History ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
Literary Sources ◽  
Turbulent Times ◽  
History Of ◽  
Near Eastern Studies

Franz Rosenthal (1914-2003), one of the outstanding scholars of Semitic languages, Arabic and Islamic history of the past century, has described himself as an Orientalist, whose task is “to look beyond the culture in which one is rooted to other cultures whatever their geographical location with respect to Europe, in order to learn about and understand them and to try to spread the knowledge thus acquired”. This simple-sounding approach is qualified by a vast knowledge of the appropriate literary sources and a keen sense for the truly significant topic that characterize all of Rosenthal’s works. His memoir discusses these aspects, as well as the profile and outlook of Near Eastern Studies, particularly in relation to neighboring disciplines, and the roles of philology and language teaching. What is at least as interesting as this discussion is an autobiographical account of Rosenthal’s family, his school and university years in Berlin, of his emigration to the United States, and his career up to his arrival at Yale University – a memoir which illuminates his work and his convictions and which tells a story of “cruelly turbulent times” that changed the lives of many scholars and opened up new ways of scholarship.


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