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]

This essay works toward three goals. First, it lays some groundwork for researching prophetic literature as a source for ancient Judean historical thought. Prophetic literature reveals a great deal about how ancient Judeans thought about and with their past, as it was represented in their literary repertoire. Second, it examines Isaiah 40-48, to…[Read more]

An interview with Francis Landy on the occasion of his retirement from the University of Alberta

Review of Transforming Literature into Scripture: Texts as Cult Objects at Nineveh and Qumran by Russell Hobson

Review of The Ways of a King: Legal and Political Ideas in the Bible by Geoffrey P. Miller

Review of The Literary Imagination in Jewish Antiquity by Eva Mroczek

An examination of Judean Pillar Figurines in relation to cultural discourse and identity construction in the late Iron-Age Levant

This essay offers a close reading of the dirge in Ezek 27, the metaphorical description of the famed and sinking Tyrian ship. The analysis pays close attention to the symbolic world of the text, situating it within the literary and historical milieux of fourth-century BCE Judah, when Jerusalemite literati began codifying their authoritative texts…[Read more]

An examination of the Song of the Sea (Exodus 15) and allusions to it in the book of Isaiah

In a recent ZAW article, Michael Chan argues that II Reg 25,27-30 alludes to Gen 40-41, and that this allusion provides a hermeneutical key for understanding the purpose of II Reg 25,27-30 in an Enneateuchal context: it points to an imminent exodus, a return from exile and a gathering of diaspora in the promised land. This article picks up where…[Read more]

In the Ba‘al Cycle’s description of the threshold separating the realms of the dead from that of the living, the key reference point is described as “the two tells (at) the boundary of the netherworld” (CAT 1.4 viii, 4). The specific word used to describe both topographical features is tl, the tell, an object well known in the archaeology of the…[Read more]