Literature as Politics, Politics as Literature

This volume, in celebration of Peter Machinist, Hancock Professor of Hebrew and Other Oriental Languages at Harvard University, includes twenty-eight illuminating essays on ancient Near Eastern history and literature, which focus especially on the intersection of these fields. Contributors include one of Machinist’s teachers, several of his students, and numerous colleagues and friends. These essays probe topics for which Machinist’s work has often set new standards. And in the spirit of the honoree and his interests, these comparative studies encompass Babel, Bibel, and more. In them, Assyriologists contend with biblical cruxes and biblicists engage Assyriological research, while classicists and Hittitologists participate with considerations of their respective disciplines within a broad cross-cultural context. The volume is a must for anyone committed to the ongoing comparative study of the ancient Near East, and within that framework, the historical study of the Hebrew Bible.

“These contributions embody one and all a consummate scholarship.”—Bibliotheca Orientalis

Peter Machinist

David S. Vanderhooft and Abraham Winitzer

Bibliography of Peter Machinist

Fearful Symmetry: The Poetics, Genre, and Form of Lines 109–118, Tablet I in the Poem of Erra

Yoram Cohen

Menahem’s Reign Before the Assyrian Invasion (2 Kings 15:14–16)

Peter Dubovský

Ethnicity in the Assyrian Empire: A View from the Nisbe, (I): Foreigners and “Special” Inner Communities

Frederick Mario Fales

David and the Ark: A Jerusalem Festival Reflected in Royal Narrative

Daniel E. Fleming

Creation and the Divine Spirit in Babel and Bible: Reflections on mummu in Enūma eliš I 4 and rûaḥ in Genesis 1:2

Eckart Frahm

Niṣirti bārûti: une autre approche

Jean-Jacques Glassner

NB Administrative Terminology and Its Influence in Biblical Literature: Hebrew ארח;ה

Ronnie Goldstein

Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Literatures: A General Introduction

William W. Hallo

Between Elective Autocracy and Democracy: Formalizing Biblical Constitutional Theory

Baruch Halpern

Prosperity and Kingship in Psalms and Inscriptions

Mark W. Hamilton

Redactors, Rationalists, and (Bloodied) Rivers: Some Comments on the First Biblical Plague

John R. Huddlestun

“An Heir Created by Aššur”: Literary Observations on the Rassam Prism (A) of Ashurbanipal

Victor Avigdor Hurowitz*

Literary-Political Motifs in the Assyrian Royal Inscriptions: Measuring Continuity versus Change

Mario Liverani

Of Bears and Men: Thoughts on the End of Šulgi’s Reign and on the Ensuing Succession

Piotr Michalowski

A Hidden Anti-David Polemic in 2 Samuel 6:2

Nadav Naʾaman

The Prophet and the Augur at Tušḫan, 611 b.c.

Martti Nissinen

Assyria and Judean Identity: Beyond the Religionsgeschichtliche Schule

Eckart Otto

Psalm 22:16 and Its Sumerian and Akkadian Analogues

Shalom M. Paul

Do Ideas Travel Lightly?: Early Greek Concepts of Justice in Their Mediterranean Context

Kurt A. Raaflaub

The Rod that Smote Philistia: Isaiah 14:28–32

J. J. M. Roberts

Errant Oxen Or: The Goring Ox Redux

Martha T. Roth

Jephthah: Chutzpah and Overreach in a Hebrew Judge

Jack M. Sasson

The Remembrance of Kings Past: The Persona of King Ibbi-Sin

T. M. Sharlach

Hittite Gods in Egyptian Attire: A Case Study in Cultural Transmission

Itamar Singer*

How Did Šulgi and Išbi-Erra Ascend to Heaven?

Piotr Steinkeller

“War Crimes” in Amos’s Oracles Against the Nations (Amos 1:3–2:3)

Nili Wazana

Grammar and Context: Enki & Ninhursag ll–3 and a Rare Sumerian Construction

Christopher Woods

Towards a Biography of Kish: Notes on Urbanism and Comparison

Norman Yoffee

Index of Authors

Index of Scripture