This paper demonstrates the antiquity of certain concepts found in the Old Testament. It indicates the antiquity and objective reality of certain concepts that were part of the common intellectual, religious and technical heritage of the Old Testament and ancient Near East. Most of the comparative material is taken from Egypt.
What is the significance and intention of the call in Deuteronomy 12:5? How should readers understand this command and its application in the historical books of the Old Testament? This article argues that the Old Testament record is sufficiently clear and consistent, and that the traditional view adopted by Thompson, Craigie, Kitchen, and others has support from the ancient Near East.
This article examines some of the early interpretations of Ezekiel 17. It notes the relationship between the metaphor of a tree and kingship in the ancient Near East and then examines how it functioned in 4QEzekiel, the Septuagint, Targum Ezekiel, and the Shepherd of Hermas.
How does information about building practices from the ancient Near East support an interpretation of the book of Ezekiel? Peterson's thesis is that Ezekiel deliberately omits some key human elements from ANE temple-building practices in his temple vision of Ezekiel 40:1-Ezekiel 43:11, in an effort to help Israel to realize the nature of their sin.
Many abortion advocates cite the example of the miscarried fetus (Exodus 21:22-23) to support their claim that the fetus is not a person. Fuller argues that nevertheless this argument, its logic and implications fail in the broader legal context of the ancient Near East and the covenant code of Exodus 20-Exodus 23.
A prism now in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, England, popularly known as the Sumerian King List, is held to have been compiled from as many as fifteen different texts. This King List traces the rulers of certain Sumerian cities in succession. It is of great value because it contains some very old traditions and gives an important chronological framework for the antediluvian period of the ancient Near East.
Did the Old Testament make use of the religious ideas of the neighbours of Israel in the ancient Near East? Currid wants to demonstrate that numerous stories from the Old Testament reflect motifs and plots from Israel’s neighbours. In Chapter 6 he considers the possibility that one of these plots about a birth story is borrowed in Exodus 2:1-10.
In the ancient Near East, there was a lively desire to obtain divine knowledge. The Old Testament scorned divination. This essay considers five forms of divination found in the ANE.
Abortion was practiced in the ancient Near East at the time of Moses. Waltke considers a number of Old Testament texts to test them for their view on the life of the unborn child and the nature of the fetus: Genesis 2:7, Job 42:7, and Psalm 51:5.
The history of the ancient Near East is a very important tool to help Bible students to better understand what they read. This article wants to give some illustrations of what can be learned from history to better understand the Bible. It takes a look at the Assyrians and their neighbours, Ahab, Jehu, Jeroboam II, Jehoash, Joram, etc.
According to Leviticus 25:39-43, the people of Israel are slaves of Yahweh. The author explores the function of this "slave of God" motif in the ancient Near East, and slavery in antiquity.
This is the first chapter of a commentary on Deuteronomy. Here the author provides an exegesis of Deuteronomy 1:1-Deuteronomy 2:7. The author also discusses the book of Deuteronomy as an Ancient Near-Eastern vassal treaty, the structure of law in Deuteronomy, and the concept of law in the Ancient Near East.
