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- Over the past century, archaeologists' discovery of numerous documents from the ancient Near East, such as Hammurabi's Code and the Babylonian flood story, have fuelled an ongoing debate as to the Hebrew Bible's relationship with the world from which it emerged.
- The Bible's own view, that Israel ("a people that dwells apart") was radically different from her environment, is belied by its repeated concern with the Israelites' vulnerability to the attractions of their world.
- Meanwhile, modern scholarship has demonstrated a remarkable array of similarities between Israeli's culture and that of the surrounding countries.
ContentsI. Similarities between Israel and the Ancient Near East
- The Divine in History (H.W.F. Saggs)
- The Common Theology of the Ancient Near East (Morton Smith)
II. Israel Draws on Its Environment
- The Covenant of Grant in the Old Testament and in the Ancient Near East (Moshe Weinfeld)
- The Ancient Near Eastern Background of the Love of God in Deuteronomy (William L. Moran)
- Temple Architecture: What Can Archaeology Tell Us about Solomon’s Temple? (Volkmar Fritz)
- Egyptian Wisdom in the Old Testament (Ernst Wurthwein)
III. Common Themes and Motifs
- A Forerunner of Biblical Prophecy: The Mari Documents (Abraham Malamat)
- Widow, Orphan, and the Poor in Ancient Near Eastern Legal and Wisdom Literature (F. Charles Spiegel)
- Noah, Daniel, and Job, Touching on Canaanite Relics in the Legends of the Jews (Shalom Spiegel)
- The Biblical Book of Lamentations in the Context of Near Eastern Lament Literature (W.C. Gwaltney)
“Foreign” Elements in Ancient Israel
- The Hebrews (Henri Cazelles)
- “And Dan, Why Did He Remain in Ships?” (Yigael Yadin)
V. Biblical Differences from the Ancient Near East
- New Moons and Sabbaths: A Case-Study in the Contrastive Approach (William H. Hallo)
- Some Postulates of Biblical Criminal Law (Moshe Greenberg)
VI. The Importance of Context
- Bible and Babel: A Comparative Study of the Hebrew and Babylonian Religious Spirit (Jacob J. Finkelstein)
- The “Comparative Method” in Biblical Interpretation – Principles and Problems (Shemaryahu Talmon)
- The Question of Distinctiveness in Ancient Israel (Peter Machinist)
Text Colour Conventions (see disclaimer)- Blue: Text by me; © Theo Todman, 2025
- Mauve: Text by correspondent(s) or other author(s); © the author(s)