The collections of Sumerian and Akkadian tablets that have been excavated at various Old Babyloni... more The collections of Sumerian and Akkadian tablets that have been excavated at various Old Babylonian sites have been surveyed and subjected to corpus-based analysis, including the tablets from prominent cities such as Nippur, Ur, Sippar, Isin, and Uruk. However, until very recently, attention has not focused on the important northern city of Kiš. Although many of the literary and liturgical duplicates from Kiš have been translated and discussed, neither the curricular nor the lamentational corpora have been treated as a whole. The goal of my dissertation, therefore, is to survey and analyze the entirety of the Old Babylonian (ca. 2000-1600 BCE) curricular and lamentational textual material from Kiš in order to identify local features or traditions that were unique to these genres. The survey of the curricular textual material will seek to accomplish two goals. First, it will identify the curricular compositions that were used in scribal education at Kiš during the OB period. Second, it will determine the ways in which the Kiš scribal curriculum deviated from the curricula that are known from other OB cites, such as Nippur, Ur, and Sippar. The latter investigation will reveal two patterns at Kiš. First, it will demonstrate that, although several curricular duplicates varied from manuscripts found at the major scribal center, Nippur, there is evidence to suggest that there were lines of textual transmission that connected the OB Kiš lexical tradition to those that were found in the MB and the first millennium. This evidence suggests that, although many of the Kiš curricular texts duplicate manuscripts that were found at Nippur, those that do not sometimes correspond with duplicates found in later periods, which appear to follow a more northern lexical tradition. Secondly, relative to the number of similar exercises found at the other OB cities, the Kiš curriculum included significantly higher numbers of Akkadian exercises (approximately two to four times as many), and appear in the elementary, intermediate, and advanced stages of the curriculum. It appears that students were required to copy Akkadian texts throughout their scribal training, beginning in the early stages of the curriculum. This relative abundance and broad application of Akkadian exercises in the whole of the curriculum speaks to the practical importance that Akkadian had in the day-to-day life of the scribes. The survey of the lamentational liturgies will seek to identify local features or traditions that were made to the Kiš laments in order to make them more appropriate for use in ritual performance. Many of these local features included city-specific modifications, such as deletions, additions, and replacements of proper nouns. Further investigation will reveal other local features, such as variant litanies, complete with unique incipits, unduplicated Kirugus, and modified refrains. Thematically, both the duplicated and unduplicated Kiš laments concerned themselves most often with the lamenting goddess. In short, I will conclude that the gala-priests were able to modify their liturgies to fit local consumption, and these traditions, in part, were incorporated into the standardized corpus of lamentational liturgies of the first millennium. Finally, the dissertation will investigate one final local feature that, while not unique to Kiš, was disproportionately used at the city: phonetic writings. The goals will be to identify the patterns or rules that were used to compose a text phonetically and to determine the most likely purpose for composing in this phonetic style in both lamentational and literary texts. The results of this dissertation will show that, although the OB Kiš corpus is poorly preserved and has lacked corpus-based investigation, both the curricular and lamentational texts are able to fill significant gaps in the study of scribal education and lamentational performance. The volume of curricular duplicates, though fragmentary and under published, reveals an active scribal educational system, complete with local characteristics and practical emphases. And although the evidence for lamentational performance in the OB period is scant compared to the myriad of texts composed in the first millennium, by revealing the content of many of the unduplicated liturgies at Kiš, and demonstrating local variants that appear in the laments, it will illuminate further aspects of OB lamentational performance. In the end, we see that the curricular and lamentational texts speak to the day-to-day activities that took place at OB Kiš, both in the curriculum, and in the cult. It will be seen that these Kiš traditions informed and influenced the standardized lexical and liturgical traditions of the first millennium, traditions that affected and shaped, to varying degrees, educational and theological concepts throughout Mesopotamian society.
Did the Old Testament Endorse Slavery? 2nd Edition, 2023
Many Christian apologists struggle to defend passages in the Old Testament that seem to sanction ... more Many Christian apologists struggle to defend passages in the Old Testament that seem to sanction the practice of slavery. Did the Old Testament endorse the social institution of slavery? Was it "real" slavery, or something else? Was it like the slavery that we saw in the antebellum South? In this second edition, Bowen leads the reader through all of the laws about slavery in the ancient Near East and the Old Testament and discusses what scholars say about this hotly debated topic in online circles.
Learn to Read Ancient Sumerian Volume One gave you the basic tools to understand the world's olde... more Learn to Read Ancient Sumerian Volume One gave you the basic tools to understand the world's oldest written language. Now Volume Two gives you the detail and nuance that you've been waiting for! Written in clear, easy-to-understand language, this book builds on knowledge learned in Volume One, with plenty of translation exercises to help solidify your learning.
The Atheist Handbook to the Old Testament Volume II, 2022
Following from the popular Volume 1, The Atheist Handbook to the Old Testament: Volume 2, takes u... more Following from the popular Volume 1, The Atheist Handbook to the Old Testament: Volume 2, takes up the challenge of providing a clear and useful guide to those wanting a better understanding of the Old Testament, including its cultural and historical background, as well as discussions on contentious topics like violence and genocide, and whether the Exodus was a real historical event. Volume 2 also covers the narrative of the Old Testament from the conquest to the divided monarchy, and a brief history of Egypt to help situate the biblical text within agreed historical events.
This book provides:
clear and straightforward explanations to complex topics direct engagement with hot-button Old Testament issues specific arguments to help you in a debate or discussion Whether you are looking to debate problematic Old Testament issues on social media or have a relaxed, meaningful discussion with a family member over coffee, The Atheist Handbook to the Old Testament is an indispensable resource for you.
The Old Testament is a fierce battleground for atheists and Christian apologists, with each side ... more The Old Testament is a fierce battleground for atheists and Christian apologists, with each side accusing the other of taking challenging and troubling passages out of context. In this handbook, Joshua Bowen not only provides the background to the Old Testament and the ancient Near East, but engages with hotly contested topics like slavery, failed prophecy, and the authorship of debated Old Testament books.
This book provides:
-clear and straightforward explanations to complex topics
-direct engagement with hot-button Old Testament issues
-specific arguments to help you in a debate or discussion.
Whether you are looking to debate problematic Old Testament issues on social media or have a relaxed, meaningful discussion with a family member over coffee, The Atheist Handbook to the Old Testament is an indispensable resource for you.
Learning to Pray in a Dead Language: Education and Invocation in Ancient Sumerian, 2020
The connection between prayer and schools has been a hot-button issue in the United States since ... more The connection between prayer and schools has been a hot-button issue in the United States since their official separation in 1962. Many are in favor of restoring prayer in schools, others, however, find the idea inappropriate.
In the ancient world there was no such distinction between the secular and the sacred, between the schoolhouse and the sanctuary. In ancient Iraq, in the early second millennium BCE – a time known as the Old Babylonian period – we see that schools were not only places of learning about things like writing, grammar, and mathematics, but also about a wide variety of religious concepts. This book, compiled from Dr. Bowen’s 2017 Ph.D. thesis, explores the profound effect education had upon the practice of prayer in second millennium Mesopotamia, shaping traditions and perceptions that resonate through history to our understanding of Judeo-Christian religion today.
This book will: •Provide a detailed overview of schooling in second millennium BCE Mesopotamia, and how the school curriculum differed from city-to-city. •Discuss the importance of the prayers of priests, who were responsible for averting disaster through calming the hearts of angry gods. •Show how a standardized scribal curriculum impacted religious tradition which, in turn, influenced the writers of the Old Testament, and ultimately western civilization.
The God of the Old Testament commanded and endorsed many practices that we find morally reprehens... more The God of the Old Testament commanded and endorsed many practices that we find morally reprehensible today. High on the list was the institution of slavery, which features prominently in several sections of the Hebrew Bible. Fathers could sell their daughters into slavery, masters could beat their slaves, creditors could carry off children for failure to repay a debt, and foreigners could be kept for life, passed down as inherited property. How are we to make sense of all of this from our modern point of view?
Atheists and skeptics will often say that the God of the Old Testament was a moral monster for endorsing such atrocities. Christians will often respond that the slavery in the Hebrew Bible wasn’t as bad as we think, and was more like having a job or owning a credit card. While both sides of this debate are sincere in their positions, neither are ultimately correct. Our conclusions must derive from a thorough understanding of both the Old Testament and ancient Near Eastern contexts.
This book will:
Provide a detailed overview of slavery laws and practices in the Old Testament and the ancient Near East.
Examine the significant – and highly controversial – passages in the Hebrew Bible that deal with slavery, including laws about beating your slave, taking foreign chattel slaves, and what to do if a slave runs away from their master.
Answer the most challenging questions about slavery in the Old Testament, including, “Could you beat your slave within an inch of their life and get away with it?” “Were slaves just property that had no human rights?” and “Did the Old Testament really endorse slavery?”
Learn to Read Ancient Sumerian: An Introduction for Complete Beginners, 2020
Sumerian is the world's oldest written language, but the ability to read it is restricted to the ... more Sumerian is the world's oldest written language, but the ability to read it is restricted to the lucky few - until now! Learn to Read Ancient Sumerian: An Introduction for Complete Beginners is written specifically for people with no training in ancient languages, letting the reader learn Sumerian without having to learn grammatical jargon first. Any grammatical terms that are used are explained in clear language, and a handy index provides definitions just in case you need a reminder!
Each of the 11 chapters introduce and explain important grammatical features, building upon previous chapters to provide and in-depth understanding of the language without being overwhelming. Every chapter includes a list of vocabulary and cuneiform signs for the student to master, as well as exercises to help solidify the reader's understanding of grammatical concepts. Exercises written in cuneiform mean that you start reading authentic Sumerian right from the start, building up to translating ancient cuneiform inscriptions from drawings and photographs!
This book will: Teach you the fundamentals of Sumerian grammar in language you can understand. Give you exercises so you can test and consolidate your new-found knowledge. Let you read actual cuneiform inscriptions from 4,000 years ago!
The collections of Sumerian and Akkadian tablets that have been excavated at various Old Babyloni... more The collections of Sumerian and Akkadian tablets that have been excavated at various Old Babylonian sites have been surveyed and subjected to corpus-based analysis, including the tablets from prominent cities such as Nippur, Ur, Sippar, Isin, and Uruk. However, until very recently, attention has not focused on the important northern city of Kiš. Although many of the literary and liturgical duplicates from Kiš have been translated and discussed, neither the curricular nor the lamentational corpora have been treated as a whole. The goal of my dissertation, therefore, is to survey and analyze the entirety of the Old Babylonian (ca. 2000-1600 BCE) curricular and lamentational textual material from Kiš in order to identify local features or traditions that were unique to these genres. The survey of the curricular textual material will seek to accomplish two goals. First, it will identify the curricular compositions that were used in scribal education at Kiš during the OB period. Second, it will determine the ways in which the Kiš scribal curriculum deviated from the curricula that are known from other OB cites, such as Nippur, Ur, and Sippar. The latter investigation will reveal two patterns at Kiš. First, it will demonstrate that, although several curricular duplicates varied from manuscripts found at the major scribal center, Nippur, there is evidence to suggest that there were lines of textual transmission that connected the OB Kiš lexical tradition to those that were found in the MB and the first millennium. This evidence suggests that, although many of the Kiš curricular texts duplicate manuscripts that were found at Nippur, those that do not sometimes correspond with duplicates found in later periods, which appear to follow a more northern lexical tradition. Secondly, relative to the number of similar exercises found at the other OB cities, the Kiš curriculum included significantly higher numbers of Akkadian exercises (approximately two to four times as many), and appear in the elementary, intermediate, and advanced stages of the curriculum. It appears that students were required to copy Akkadian texts throughout their scribal training, beginning in the early stages of the curriculum. This relative abundance and broad application of Akkadian exercises in the whole of the curriculum speaks to the practical importance that Akkadian had in the day-to-day life of the scribes. The survey of the lamentational liturgies will seek to identify local features or traditions that were made to the Kiš laments in order to make them more appropriate for use in ritual performance. Many of these local features included city-specific modifications, such as deletions, additions, and replacements of proper nouns. Further investigation will reveal other local features, such as variant litanies, complete with unique incipits, unduplicated Kirugus, and modified refrains. Thematically, both the duplicated and unduplicated Kiš laments concerned themselves most often with the lamenting goddess. In short, I will conclude that the gala-priests were able to modify their liturgies to fit local consumption, and these traditions, in part, were incorporated into the standardized corpus of lamentational liturgies of the first millennium. Finally, the dissertation will investigate one final local feature that, while not unique to Kiš, was disproportionately used at the city: phonetic writings. The goals will be to identify the patterns or rules that were used to compose a text phonetically and to determine the most likely purpose for composing in this phonetic style in both lamentational and literary texts. The results of this dissertation will show that, although the OB Kiš corpus is poorly preserved and has lacked corpus-based investigation, both the curricular and lamentational texts are able to fill significant gaps in the study of scribal education and lamentational performance. The volume of curricular duplicates, though fragmentary and under published, reveals an active scribal educational system, complete with local characteristics and practical emphases. And although the evidence for lamentational performance in the OB period is scant compared to the myriad of texts composed in the first millennium, by revealing the content of many of the unduplicated liturgies at Kiš, and demonstrating local variants that appear in the laments, it will illuminate further aspects of OB lamentational performance. In the end, we see that the curricular and lamentational texts speak to the day-to-day activities that took place at OB Kiš, both in the curriculum, and in the cult. It will be seen that these Kiš traditions informed and influenced the standardized lexical and liturgical traditions of the first millennium, traditions that affected and shaped, to varying degrees, educational and theological concepts throughout Mesopotamian society.
Did the Old Testament Endorse Slavery? 2nd Edition, 2023
Many Christian apologists struggle to defend passages in the Old Testament that seem to sanction ... more Many Christian apologists struggle to defend passages in the Old Testament that seem to sanction the practice of slavery. Did the Old Testament endorse the social institution of slavery? Was it "real" slavery, or something else? Was it like the slavery that we saw in the antebellum South? In this second edition, Bowen leads the reader through all of the laws about slavery in the ancient Near East and the Old Testament and discusses what scholars say about this hotly debated topic in online circles.
Learn to Read Ancient Sumerian Volume One gave you the basic tools to understand the world's olde... more Learn to Read Ancient Sumerian Volume One gave you the basic tools to understand the world's oldest written language. Now Volume Two gives you the detail and nuance that you've been waiting for! Written in clear, easy-to-understand language, this book builds on knowledge learned in Volume One, with plenty of translation exercises to help solidify your learning.
The Atheist Handbook to the Old Testament Volume II, 2022
Following from the popular Volume 1, The Atheist Handbook to the Old Testament: Volume 2, takes u... more Following from the popular Volume 1, The Atheist Handbook to the Old Testament: Volume 2, takes up the challenge of providing a clear and useful guide to those wanting a better understanding of the Old Testament, including its cultural and historical background, as well as discussions on contentious topics like violence and genocide, and whether the Exodus was a real historical event. Volume 2 also covers the narrative of the Old Testament from the conquest to the divided monarchy, and a brief history of Egypt to help situate the biblical text within agreed historical events.
This book provides:
clear and straightforward explanations to complex topics direct engagement with hot-button Old Testament issues specific arguments to help you in a debate or discussion Whether you are looking to debate problematic Old Testament issues on social media or have a relaxed, meaningful discussion with a family member over coffee, The Atheist Handbook to the Old Testament is an indispensable resource for you.
The Old Testament is a fierce battleground for atheists and Christian apologists, with each side ... more The Old Testament is a fierce battleground for atheists and Christian apologists, with each side accusing the other of taking challenging and troubling passages out of context. In this handbook, Joshua Bowen not only provides the background to the Old Testament and the ancient Near East, but engages with hotly contested topics like slavery, failed prophecy, and the authorship of debated Old Testament books.
This book provides:
-clear and straightforward explanations to complex topics
-direct engagement with hot-button Old Testament issues
-specific arguments to help you in a debate or discussion.
Whether you are looking to debate problematic Old Testament issues on social media or have a relaxed, meaningful discussion with a family member over coffee, The Atheist Handbook to the Old Testament is an indispensable resource for you.
Learning to Pray in a Dead Language: Education and Invocation in Ancient Sumerian, 2020
The connection between prayer and schools has been a hot-button issue in the United States since ... more The connection between prayer and schools has been a hot-button issue in the United States since their official separation in 1962. Many are in favor of restoring prayer in schools, others, however, find the idea inappropriate.
In the ancient world there was no such distinction between the secular and the sacred, between the schoolhouse and the sanctuary. In ancient Iraq, in the early second millennium BCE – a time known as the Old Babylonian period – we see that schools were not only places of learning about things like writing, grammar, and mathematics, but also about a wide variety of religious concepts. This book, compiled from Dr. Bowen’s 2017 Ph.D. thesis, explores the profound effect education had upon the practice of prayer in second millennium Mesopotamia, shaping traditions and perceptions that resonate through history to our understanding of Judeo-Christian religion today.
This book will: •Provide a detailed overview of schooling in second millennium BCE Mesopotamia, and how the school curriculum differed from city-to-city. •Discuss the importance of the prayers of priests, who were responsible for averting disaster through calming the hearts of angry gods. •Show how a standardized scribal curriculum impacted religious tradition which, in turn, influenced the writers of the Old Testament, and ultimately western civilization.
The God of the Old Testament commanded and endorsed many practices that we find morally reprehens... more The God of the Old Testament commanded and endorsed many practices that we find morally reprehensible today. High on the list was the institution of slavery, which features prominently in several sections of the Hebrew Bible. Fathers could sell their daughters into slavery, masters could beat their slaves, creditors could carry off children for failure to repay a debt, and foreigners could be kept for life, passed down as inherited property. How are we to make sense of all of this from our modern point of view?
Atheists and skeptics will often say that the God of the Old Testament was a moral monster for endorsing such atrocities. Christians will often respond that the slavery in the Hebrew Bible wasn’t as bad as we think, and was more like having a job or owning a credit card. While both sides of this debate are sincere in their positions, neither are ultimately correct. Our conclusions must derive from a thorough understanding of both the Old Testament and ancient Near Eastern contexts.
This book will:
Provide a detailed overview of slavery laws and practices in the Old Testament and the ancient Near East.
Examine the significant – and highly controversial – passages in the Hebrew Bible that deal with slavery, including laws about beating your slave, taking foreign chattel slaves, and what to do if a slave runs away from their master.
Answer the most challenging questions about slavery in the Old Testament, including, “Could you beat your slave within an inch of their life and get away with it?” “Were slaves just property that had no human rights?” and “Did the Old Testament really endorse slavery?”
Learn to Read Ancient Sumerian: An Introduction for Complete Beginners, 2020
Sumerian is the world's oldest written language, but the ability to read it is restricted to the ... more Sumerian is the world's oldest written language, but the ability to read it is restricted to the lucky few - until now! Learn to Read Ancient Sumerian: An Introduction for Complete Beginners is written specifically for people with no training in ancient languages, letting the reader learn Sumerian without having to learn grammatical jargon first. Any grammatical terms that are used are explained in clear language, and a handy index provides definitions just in case you need a reminder!
Each of the 11 chapters introduce and explain important grammatical features, building upon previous chapters to provide and in-depth understanding of the language without being overwhelming. Every chapter includes a list of vocabulary and cuneiform signs for the student to master, as well as exercises to help solidify the reader's understanding of grammatical concepts. Exercises written in cuneiform mean that you start reading authentic Sumerian right from the start, building up to translating ancient cuneiform inscriptions from drawings and photographs!
This book will: Teach you the fundamentals of Sumerian grammar in language you can understand. Give you exercises so you can test and consolidate your new-found knowledge. Let you read actual cuneiform inscriptions from 4,000 years ago!
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The survey of the curricular textual material will seek to accomplish two goals. First, it will identify the curricular compositions that were used in scribal education at Kiš during the OB period. Second, it will determine the ways in which the Kiš scribal curriculum deviated from the curricula that are known from other OB cites, such as Nippur, Ur, and Sippar. The latter investigation will reveal two patterns at Kiš. First, it will demonstrate that, although several curricular duplicates varied from manuscripts found at the major scribal center, Nippur, there is evidence to suggest that there were lines of textual transmission that connected the OB Kiš lexical tradition to those that were found in the MB and the first millennium. This evidence suggests that, although many of the Kiš curricular texts duplicate manuscripts that were found at Nippur, those that do not sometimes correspond with duplicates found in later periods, which appear to follow a more northern lexical tradition.
Secondly, relative to the number of similar exercises found at the other OB cities, the Kiš curriculum included significantly higher numbers of Akkadian exercises (approximately two to four times as many), and appear in the elementary, intermediate, and advanced stages of the curriculum. It appears that students were required to copy Akkadian texts throughout their scribal training, beginning in the early stages of the curriculum. This relative abundance and broad application of Akkadian exercises in the whole of the curriculum speaks to the practical importance that Akkadian had in the day-to-day life of the scribes.
The survey of the lamentational liturgies will seek to identify local features or traditions that were made to the Kiš laments in order to make them more appropriate for use in ritual performance. Many of these local features included city-specific modifications, such as deletions, additions, and replacements of proper nouns. Further investigation will reveal other local features, such as variant litanies, complete with unique incipits, unduplicated Kirugus, and modified refrains. Thematically, both the duplicated and unduplicated Kiš laments concerned themselves most often with the lamenting goddess. In short, I will conclude that the gala-priests were able to modify their liturgies to fit local consumption, and these traditions, in part, were incorporated into the standardized corpus of lamentational liturgies of the first millennium.
Finally, the dissertation will investigate one final local feature that, while not unique to Kiš, was disproportionately used at the city: phonetic writings. The goals will be to identify the patterns or rules that were used to compose a text phonetically and to determine the most likely purpose for composing in this phonetic style in both lamentational and literary texts.
The results of this dissertation will show that, although the OB Kiš corpus is poorly preserved and has lacked corpus-based investigation, both the curricular and lamentational texts are able to fill significant gaps in the study of scribal education and lamentational performance. The volume of curricular duplicates, though fragmentary and under published, reveals an active scribal educational system, complete with local characteristics and practical emphases. And although the evidence for lamentational performance in the OB period is scant compared to the myriad of texts composed in the first millennium, by revealing the content of many of the unduplicated liturgies at Kiš, and demonstrating local variants that appear in the laments, it will illuminate further aspects of OB lamentational performance. In the end, we see that the curricular and lamentational texts speak to the day-to-day activities that took place at OB Kiš, both in the curriculum, and in the cult. It will be seen that these Kiš traditions informed and influenced the standardized lexical and liturgical traditions of the first millennium, traditions that affected and shaped, to varying degrees, educational and theological concepts throughout Mesopotamian society.
This book provides:
clear and straightforward explanations to complex topics
direct engagement with hot-button Old Testament issues
specific arguments to help you in a debate or discussion
Whether you are looking to debate problematic Old Testament issues on social media or have a relaxed, meaningful discussion with a family member over coffee, The Atheist Handbook to the Old Testament is an indispensable resource for you.
This book provides:
-clear and straightforward explanations to complex topics
-direct engagement with hot-button Old Testament issues
-specific arguments to help you in a debate or discussion.
Whether you are looking to debate problematic Old Testament issues on social media or have a relaxed, meaningful discussion with a family member over coffee, The Atheist Handbook to the Old Testament is an indispensable resource for you.
In the ancient world there was no such distinction between the secular and the sacred, between the schoolhouse and the sanctuary. In ancient Iraq, in the early second millennium BCE – a time known as the Old Babylonian period – we see that schools were not only places of learning about things like writing, grammar, and mathematics, but also about a wide variety of religious concepts. This book, compiled from Dr. Bowen’s 2017 Ph.D. thesis, explores the profound effect education had upon the practice of prayer in second millennium Mesopotamia, shaping traditions and perceptions that resonate through history to our understanding of Judeo-Christian religion today.
This book will:
•Provide a detailed overview of schooling in second millennium BCE Mesopotamia, and how the school curriculum differed from city-to-city.
•Discuss the importance of the prayers of priests, who were responsible for averting disaster through calming the hearts of angry gods.
•Show how a standardized scribal curriculum impacted religious tradition which, in turn, influenced the writers of the Old Testament, and ultimately western civilization.
Atheists and skeptics will often say that the God of the Old Testament was a moral monster for endorsing such atrocities. Christians will often respond that the slavery in the Hebrew Bible wasn’t as bad as we think, and was more like having a job or owning a credit card. While both sides of this debate are sincere in their positions, neither are ultimately correct. Our conclusions must derive from a thorough understanding of both the Old Testament and ancient Near Eastern contexts.
This book will:
Provide a detailed overview of slavery laws and practices in the Old Testament and the ancient Near East.
Examine the significant – and highly controversial – passages in the Hebrew Bible that deal with slavery, including laws about beating your slave, taking foreign chattel slaves, and what to do if a slave runs away from their master.
Answer the most challenging questions about slavery in the Old Testament, including, “Could you beat your slave within an inch of their life and get away with it?” “Were slaves just property that had no human rights?” and “Did the Old Testament really endorse slavery?”
Learn to Read Ancient Sumerian: An Introduction for Complete Beginners is written specifically for people with no training in ancient languages, letting the reader learn Sumerian without having to learn grammatical jargon first. Any grammatical terms that are used are explained in clear language, and a handy index provides definitions just in case you need a reminder!
Each of the 11 chapters introduce and explain important grammatical features, building upon previous chapters to provide and in-depth understanding of the language without being overwhelming. Every chapter includes a list of vocabulary and cuneiform signs for the student to master, as well as exercises to help solidify the reader's understanding of grammatical concepts. Exercises written in cuneiform mean that you start reading authentic Sumerian right from the start, building up to translating ancient cuneiform inscriptions from drawings and photographs!
This book will:
Teach you the fundamentals of Sumerian grammar in language you can understand.
Give you exercises so you can test and consolidate your new-found knowledge.
Let you read actual cuneiform inscriptions from 4,000 years ago!
The survey of the curricular textual material will seek to accomplish two goals. First, it will identify the curricular compositions that were used in scribal education at Kiš during the OB period. Second, it will determine the ways in which the Kiš scribal curriculum deviated from the curricula that are known from other OB cites, such as Nippur, Ur, and Sippar. The latter investigation will reveal two patterns at Kiš. First, it will demonstrate that, although several curricular duplicates varied from manuscripts found at the major scribal center, Nippur, there is evidence to suggest that there were lines of textual transmission that connected the OB Kiš lexical tradition to those that were found in the MB and the first millennium. This evidence suggests that, although many of the Kiš curricular texts duplicate manuscripts that were found at Nippur, those that do not sometimes correspond with duplicates found in later periods, which appear to follow a more northern lexical tradition.
Secondly, relative to the number of similar exercises found at the other OB cities, the Kiš curriculum included significantly higher numbers of Akkadian exercises (approximately two to four times as many), and appear in the elementary, intermediate, and advanced stages of the curriculum. It appears that students were required to copy Akkadian texts throughout their scribal training, beginning in the early stages of the curriculum. This relative abundance and broad application of Akkadian exercises in the whole of the curriculum speaks to the practical importance that Akkadian had in the day-to-day life of the scribes.
The survey of the lamentational liturgies will seek to identify local features or traditions that were made to the Kiš laments in order to make them more appropriate for use in ritual performance. Many of these local features included city-specific modifications, such as deletions, additions, and replacements of proper nouns. Further investigation will reveal other local features, such as variant litanies, complete with unique incipits, unduplicated Kirugus, and modified refrains. Thematically, both the duplicated and unduplicated Kiš laments concerned themselves most often with the lamenting goddess. In short, I will conclude that the gala-priests were able to modify their liturgies to fit local consumption, and these traditions, in part, were incorporated into the standardized corpus of lamentational liturgies of the first millennium.
Finally, the dissertation will investigate one final local feature that, while not unique to Kiš, was disproportionately used at the city: phonetic writings. The goals will be to identify the patterns or rules that were used to compose a text phonetically and to determine the most likely purpose for composing in this phonetic style in both lamentational and literary texts.
The results of this dissertation will show that, although the OB Kiš corpus is poorly preserved and has lacked corpus-based investigation, both the curricular and lamentational texts are able to fill significant gaps in the study of scribal education and lamentational performance. The volume of curricular duplicates, though fragmentary and under published, reveals an active scribal educational system, complete with local characteristics and practical emphases. And although the evidence for lamentational performance in the OB period is scant compared to the myriad of texts composed in the first millennium, by revealing the content of many of the unduplicated liturgies at Kiš, and demonstrating local variants that appear in the laments, it will illuminate further aspects of OB lamentational performance. In the end, we see that the curricular and lamentational texts speak to the day-to-day activities that took place at OB Kiš, both in the curriculum, and in the cult. It will be seen that these Kiš traditions informed and influenced the standardized lexical and liturgical traditions of the first millennium, traditions that affected and shaped, to varying degrees, educational and theological concepts throughout Mesopotamian society.
This book provides:
clear and straightforward explanations to complex topics
direct engagement with hot-button Old Testament issues
specific arguments to help you in a debate or discussion
Whether you are looking to debate problematic Old Testament issues on social media or have a relaxed, meaningful discussion with a family member over coffee, The Atheist Handbook to the Old Testament is an indispensable resource for you.
This book provides:
-clear and straightforward explanations to complex topics
-direct engagement with hot-button Old Testament issues
-specific arguments to help you in a debate or discussion.
Whether you are looking to debate problematic Old Testament issues on social media or have a relaxed, meaningful discussion with a family member over coffee, The Atheist Handbook to the Old Testament is an indispensable resource for you.
In the ancient world there was no such distinction between the secular and the sacred, between the schoolhouse and the sanctuary. In ancient Iraq, in the early second millennium BCE – a time known as the Old Babylonian period – we see that schools were not only places of learning about things like writing, grammar, and mathematics, but also about a wide variety of religious concepts. This book, compiled from Dr. Bowen’s 2017 Ph.D. thesis, explores the profound effect education had upon the practice of prayer in second millennium Mesopotamia, shaping traditions and perceptions that resonate through history to our understanding of Judeo-Christian religion today.
This book will:
•Provide a detailed overview of schooling in second millennium BCE Mesopotamia, and how the school curriculum differed from city-to-city.
•Discuss the importance of the prayers of priests, who were responsible for averting disaster through calming the hearts of angry gods.
•Show how a standardized scribal curriculum impacted religious tradition which, in turn, influenced the writers of the Old Testament, and ultimately western civilization.
Atheists and skeptics will often say that the God of the Old Testament was a moral monster for endorsing such atrocities. Christians will often respond that the slavery in the Hebrew Bible wasn’t as bad as we think, and was more like having a job or owning a credit card. While both sides of this debate are sincere in their positions, neither are ultimately correct. Our conclusions must derive from a thorough understanding of both the Old Testament and ancient Near Eastern contexts.
This book will:
Provide a detailed overview of slavery laws and practices in the Old Testament and the ancient Near East.
Examine the significant – and highly controversial – passages in the Hebrew Bible that deal with slavery, including laws about beating your slave, taking foreign chattel slaves, and what to do if a slave runs away from their master.
Answer the most challenging questions about slavery in the Old Testament, including, “Could you beat your slave within an inch of their life and get away with it?” “Were slaves just property that had no human rights?” and “Did the Old Testament really endorse slavery?”
Learn to Read Ancient Sumerian: An Introduction for Complete Beginners is written specifically for people with no training in ancient languages, letting the reader learn Sumerian without having to learn grammatical jargon first. Any grammatical terms that are used are explained in clear language, and a handy index provides definitions just in case you need a reminder!
Each of the 11 chapters introduce and explain important grammatical features, building upon previous chapters to provide and in-depth understanding of the language without being overwhelming. Every chapter includes a list of vocabulary and cuneiform signs for the student to master, as well as exercises to help solidify the reader's understanding of grammatical concepts. Exercises written in cuneiform mean that you start reading authentic Sumerian right from the start, building up to translating ancient cuneiform inscriptions from drawings and photographs!
This book will:
Teach you the fundamentals of Sumerian grammar in language you can understand.
Give you exercises so you can test and consolidate your new-found knowledge.
Let you read actual cuneiform inscriptions from 4,000 years ago!