Several documents from Egypt and Ḫatti (especially the Amarna letters and the Egyptian-Hittite correspondence) mention envoys and messengers in charge of diplomatic contacts between the two countries. Cuneiform and hieroglyphic transcriptions of Egyptian names at Ugarit hint at an actual presence (in Ugarit and Karkemish) of officials coming f…[Read more]

What was the significance of ancestors in the Hebrew Bible? The question is spurred by Kerry Sonia’s Caring for the Dead, which argues that the cult of dead kin was an accepted practice in the culture of the biblical writers. In building this thesis, Sonia resists an idea popular in scholarship that the Hebrew Bible promotes a negative view of r…[Read more]

What was the significance of ancestors in the Hebrew Bible? The question is spurred by Kerry Sonia’s Caring for the Dead, which argues that the cult of dead kin was an accepted practice in the culture of the biblical writers. In building this thesis, Sonia resists an idea popular in scholarship that the Hebrew Bible promotes a negative view of r…[Read more]

Feeding the dead was an accepted cultural practice in the world of biblical writers. It is circumscribed by cultic considerations in passages such as Deut 26:14, but there are no texts that prohibit the placing of food inside tombs. Thus, the biblical writers tacitly acknowledged the practice, though feeding the dead is never explicitly prescribed…[Read more]

Feeding the dead was an accepted cultural practice in the world of biblical writers. It is circumscribed by cultic considerations in passages such as Deut 26:14, but there are no texts that prohibit the placing of food inside tombs. Thus, the biblical writers tacitly acknowledged the practice, though feeding the dead is never explicitly prescribed…[Read more]

Nigeria as a developing country is on the fast track to the attainment of development, or supposedly so. In this endeavour, priority is inevitably placed on science and technology as the only routes for the attainment of this dream. Such one track minded disposition is mouthed to the exclusion of other factors that contribute to the development of…[Read more]

The drama of the Niger Delta region has enjoyed robust scholarship. This essay interrogates J. P. Clark-Bekederemo’s drama against the cultural milieu of the region and tries to investigate the connections between the rich folklore of the area and the wealth of poetry and imagery contained in his drama. The essay investigates the terrain,…[Read more]

The spread of the Omicron variant this winter was met with renewed calls for the UK Government to fund the arts and culture through the Sars-CoV-2 pandemic and beyond. ‘We are in crisis mode’, Nicolas Hytner, former artistic director of the National Theatre, told the BBC’s Newsnight programme. ‘We need to see short-term finance, we need to see loa…[Read more]

This essay examines select Priestly texts that describe the roles of leaders from the northern and southern tribes in the wilderness cult: the texts of Exod 25–31, 35–40 that concern the sanctuary artisans Bezalel (from the tribe of Judah) and Oholiab (from the tribe of Dan), chosen to lead the construction of the wilderness shrine; the des…[Read more]