Description
Book SynopsisThroughout the past three decades, Nadav Na'aman has repeatedly proved that he is one of the most careful historians of ancient Canaan and Israel. With broad expertise, he has brought together archaeology, text, and the inscriptional material from all of the ancient Near East to bear on the history of ancient Israel and the land of Canaan during the second and first millenniums B.C.E. Many of his studies have been published as journal articles or notes and yet, together, they constitute one of the most important bodies of literature on the subject in recent years, particularly because of the careful attention to methodology that Na'aman always has brought to his work.
Collected here are 23 essays on the Hurrians, the Egyptians and their presence in the Levant during the second millennium B.C.E., Canaanite city-states, the Amarna Letters, and the neighbors of Canaan in the north, such as Alalakh and Damascus. The essays range over such topics as scribes and language, archaeology, cultural influences, and the interrelations of the great powers during this period. The volume includes indexes of ancient personal names, place-names, and biblical references.
Table of Contents1. The Hurrians and the End of the Middle Bronze Age in Palestine
2. The Egyptian-Canaanite Correspondence
3. Ammishtamru’s Letter to Akhenaten (EA 45) and Hittite Chronology
4. Looking for the Pharaoh’s Judgment
5. The Origin and the Historical Background of Several Amarna Letters
6. Biryawaza of Damascus and the Date of the Kamid el-Loz ʿApiru Letters
7. Praises to the Pharaoh in Response to His Plans for Campaign to Canaan
8. The Canaanites and Their Land
9. Four Notes on the Size of Late Bronze Canaan
10. The Network of Canaanite Late Bronze Kingdoms and the City of Ashdod
11. Canaanite Jerusalem and Its Central Hill Country Neighbors in the Second Millennium BCE
12. Yenoʿam
13. Rubutu/Aruboth
14. Economic Aspects of the Egyptian Occupation of Canaan
15. Pharaonic Lands in the Jezreel Valley in the Late Bronze Age
16. On Gods and Scribal Traditions in the Amarna Letters
17.abiru and Hebrews: The Transfer of a Social Term to the Literary Sphere
18. The Town of Ibirta and the Relations of the ʿApiru and the Shasu
19. Amarna alani pu-ru-zi (EA 137) and Biblical ʿry hprzy/hprzwt (“Rural Settlements”)
20. The Ishtar Temple at Alalakh
21. A Royal Scribe and His Scribal Products in the Alalakh IV Court
22. Literary and Topographical Notes on the Battle of Kishon (Judges 4–5)
23. The “Conquest of Canaan” in the Book of Joshua and in History
Index of Ancient Personal Names
Index of Places
Index of Biblical References
