This paper examines the relationship between house and household in first-millennium BC Babylonia, drawing on both textual and archaeological evidence. It builds on previous research by the author which has focused on elucidating the Babylonian terms for parts of the house and correlating these with architectural forms, based on comparison with…[Read more]

Uses social poetics to analyze talk in the Bible of looking at Yahweh’s face

The Rosen Vocabulary is an Old Babylonian bilingual text. Through an edition of this text, I argue that the ad-hoc mixed vocabularies known from the Old Babylonian period feature citations or allusions to literary compositions as well as subsequent analogous expressions, both in Sumerian and in Akkadian.

Sumerian lexical and literary compositions both emerged from the same social sphere, namely scribal education. The complexities of inter-compositional dependence in these two corpora have not been thoroughly explored, particularly as relevant to questions of text-building during the Old Babylonian period (c. 1800–1600 bce). Copying practices e…[Read more]

In Old Babylonian Sumerian literature, the temporal phrases u₄-ba and u₄-bi-a typically occur in complementary distribution. Previous analyses have focused on morphological disparity to differentiate the two. The present paper considers pragmatic functions within a larger discourse structure, analyzing them as discourse markers, specifically tem…[Read more]

Sumerian and Akkadian language contact in the early part of the second millennium BCE. The article discusses prevalent language ideologies based on native metalinguistic discourse in comparison with language use in practice with the phrase mu—pad₃ = nīš—itma ‘(s)he swore an oath’ as a case study.

This paper evaluates the recent upsurge of interest in the scribal processes underlying the composition of Hittite ritual text and the implications of this evidence for understanding the compositional history of biblical rituals.

A brief report on my dissertation research.

Argues that, reversing the trope of subjects visiting the magnificent, the Elohistic history has Yahweh interested in the simplest, flimsiest altars only, which he will visit when and where he is invited to do so. The implication rules out temple-altars and temples for their royal sponsorship.

Analyzes Isaiah 40–48 as a single literary work through levels of speakers (frame and subordinate) with implications for its construction of divine potency and communication.

This article analyzes the primary terms for purity in Biblical Hebrew, Ugaritic, Sumerian, Akkadian and Hittite. Building on insights from cognitive linguistics and embodiment theory, this study develops the premise that semantic structure – even of seemingly abstract concepts– is grounded in real-world bodily experience. An examination of pur…[Read more]

This article challenges the common tendency in modern research to treat impurity
as a religious phenomenon divorced from mundane concerns. Employing the
cross-cultural psychological notion of “contagion,” this investigation examines
the usage of terms for pollution and purity in Hittite and Akkadian as they relate
to distinct domains of hum…[Read more]

In this study, I apply embodiment theory as a framework for reconstructing the origins of the Israelite notion of pollution (ṭum’ah). Despite the fact that the Hebrew Bible describes a diverse array of sources of pollution – including bodily conditions, moral offenses and foreign cult practices, most modern studies attempt to find a single organ…[Read more]

The central argument for source division of the Pentateuch is that the present form of the literature is incoherent. The first place most readers notice the incoherence, and where biblical scholarship began giving it attention a few centuries ago, is in the Primevel Story in Genesis 1-11. Among those who accept some form of the Documentary…[Read more]

I investigate the organization of urban activities in Early Bronze Age cities of Northern Mesopotamia. I combine evidence from archaeological survey, magnetometry, and excavations to demonstrate that cities were broadly integrated in terms of function and use of space: inhabitants in outer cities, lower towns, and extramural areas all pursued a…[Read more]

In Matt 23:31 and Luke 11:47 Jesus accuses his Jewish opponents of killing prophets. The gospel texts provide no basis for this charge, other than the conflict that Jesus seems to be facing at the moment. Even the one prophetic figure whose death has affected Jesus, John the Baptist, was not killed in Jerusalem, but was executed, according to the…[Read more]

First publication of two late period Elamite language cuneiform texts house in the Yale Babylonian Collection

This publication systematically describes ancient-world information resources on the world-wide web. The bibliographic data presented herein has been programmatically extracted from the content of AWOL – The Ancient World Online (ISSN 2156-2253) and formatted in accordance with a structured data model. In continuous operation since 2009, AWOL is a…[Read more]

One goal of this essay is to offer an exploratory, historiographical analysis of the conquest account in the book of Joshua, an analysis that focuses upon the sociocultural milieu of ancient Judah. I propose to show how this narrative of conquest might have contributed to discourse(s) among the literate Judean community that perpetuated the text,…[Read more]