Prophets and prophecy in the ancient Near East

Martti Nissinen, Robert Kriech Ritner, Choon Leong Seow, Peter Machinist

Society of Biblical Lit, 2003 - 273 pages

The first book to gather ancient Near Eastern, extrabiblical sources containing prophetic words or references to prophetic activities. Among the 140 texts included are oracles of prophets, personal letters, formal inscriptions, and administrative documents from ancient Mesopotamia and Levant from the second and first millennia B.C.E. Most of the texts come from Mari (eighteenth century B.C.E.) and Assyria (seventh century B.C.E.). In addition, the volume provides new translations of the Egyptian "Report of Wenamon and of various texts from Syria-Palestine containing allusions to prophets and prophetic activities. The volume illumines the cultural background of biblical prophecy and its parallels. It provides scholars with important information about different types and forms of transmission of divine words, and makes these valuable primary source materials accessible to students and general readers in contemporary English along with transcriptions of the original languages, indexes, and an extensive bibliography.

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