Four new books from the SBL

FOUR NEW BOOKS from the Society of Biblical Literature:

The Elephantine Papyri in English: Three Millennia of Cross-Cultural Continuity and Change, Second Revised Edition
Bezalel Porten

This important volume contains 175 documents from the Egyptian border fortresses of Elephantine and Syene (Aswan), which yielded hundreds of papyri in hieratic, Demotic, Aramaic, Greek, Latin, Arabic, and Coptic, spanning a period of 3000 years. The documents include letters and legal contracts from family and other archives, and are thus an invaluable source of knowledge for scholars of varied disciplines, such as epistolography, law, society, religion, language, and onomastics. The volume includes seven sections, each containing carefully translated and extensively annotated documents of one language group. Excellent cross-referencing allows the user to trace forerunners and successors. Each section is preceded by an introduction; the Aramaic, Demotic, and Greek sections are concluded with a prosopography. The book closes with a select topical index.

Paper $79.95 • 656 pages • ISBN 9781589836280 • Hardback edition

Interpreting Exile: Displacement and Deportation in Biblical and Modern Contexts
Brad E. Kelle, Frank Ritchel Ames, Jacob L. Wright, editors

Interpreting Exile considers forced displacement and deportation in ancient Israel and comparable modern contexts in order to offer insight into the realities of war and exile in ancient Israel and their representations in the Hebrew Bible. Introductory essays describe the interdisciplinary and comparative approach and explain how it overcomes methodological dead ends and advances the study of war in ancient and modern contexts. Following essays, written by scholars from various disciplines, explore specific cases drawn from a wide variety of ancient and modern settings and consider archaeological, anthropological, physical, and psychological realities, as well as biblical, literary, artistic, and iconographic representations of displacement and exile. The volume as a whole places Israel’s experiences and expressions of forced displacement into the broader context of similar war-related phenomena from multiple contexts.

Paper $57.95 • 480 pages • ISBN 9781589836044 • Ancient Israel and Its Literature 10

Pentateuch, Hexateuch, or Enneateuch? Identifying Literary Works in Genesis through Kings
Thomas B. Dozeman, Konrad Schmid, Thomas Römer, editors

The identification of literary works in the Pentateuch and the Former Prophets is a hallmark of the modern historical-critical interpretation of the Hebrew Bible. The theories of a Tetrateuch, a Hexateuch, or a Deuteronomistic History have played a central role in recovering the literary history of the Pentateuch and the Former Prophets. The breakdown of these methodologies in recent research has forced scholars to reevaluate the criteria for identifying literary works in the formation of the Hebrew Bible. The present volume explores anew, without presupposition or exclusion, the criteria by which interpreters identify literary works in these books as a resource for recovering the composition history of the literature. It also brings North American and European approaches to the topic into a common discussion.

Paper $39.95 • 324 pages • ISBN 9781589835429 • Ancient Israel and Its Literature 8

Rome and Religion: A Cross-Disciplinary Dialogue on the Imperial Cult
Jeffrey Brodd and Jonathan L. Reed, editors

This book presents an up-to-date discussion of the Roman imperial cult (the divinization of the emperor) and its general importance in early Christianity and ancient Mediterranean religions. It features opening and closing essays by Karl Galinsky, a foremost authority on Roman history and culture. Thirteen other essays explore related aspects and draw on a wide variety of disciplinary perspectives, including theory, method, archaeology, epigraphy, and art. The authors are classicists, biblical and religious scholars, historians, and archaeologists, with expertise in various cultural milieus. Reflecting this spectrum of backgrounds and interests, the book addresses issues and phenomena covering a broad expanse of subjects, locations, and methodological concerns.

Paper $37.95 • 276 pages • ISBN 9781589836129 • Writings from the Greco-Roman World Supplements 5