Harvard Semitic Monographs - HSM

In The Politics of Ritual Change: The zukru Festival in the Political History of Late Bronze Age Emar, John Thames explores the intersection of ritual and politics in ancient Syria. The cuneiform texts describing an elaborate festival called zukru invite...

Recognizing gendered metaphors as literary and ideological tools that biblical and Assyrian authors used in the representation of warfare and its aftermath, this study compares the gendered literary complexes that authors on both sides of the Israelite...

The ancient myth of a battle between a Divine Warrior and a primordial monster undergoes significant development in postbiblical and rabbinic literatures. This development is the focus of the present study. In particular, it examines the monsters...

How do we understand the characteristically extensive presence of imagery in biblical prophecy? Poetic metaphor in prophetic writings has commonly been understood solely as an artistic flourish intended to create certain rhetorical effects. It thus...

Using the focal points of temples and their roles in the diagnoses of illnesses and subsequent provision of health care, Hector Avalos breaks new ground in this unique and insightful study on medical care in the ancient world.

This present study seeks to clarify the character and functions of the Neo-Babylonian empire in its relationship to subjugated populations, and in particular to the population of Judah. Vanderhooft investigates Babylonian imperialism from two...