Civilizations of the Ancient Near East. Edited by Jack M. Sasson et al. 4 vols. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1995, xxxii + 2966 pp., $449.00.
This is a breathtaking publishing and scholarly accomplishment. For the first time, a comprehensive reference work is available that presents the state of the discipline for the study of the vast and increasingly complex and amorphous "ancient Near East." It is modeled after Scribner's Civilizations of the Ancient Mediterranean: Greece and Rome, the monumental 3-volume work that appeared in 1988. It combines aspects of several standard reference works known to Biblical scholars, such as The Cambridge Ancient History and Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament. However, its focus is different from that of either of these and its scope far broader (but both of these include materials not found in the present work, as well).
This work is divided into 11 parts. In vol. 1 are (1) "The Ancient Near East in Western Thought," (2) "The Environment," (3) "Population" and (4) "Social Institutions." In vol. 2 is (5) "History and Culture." In vol. 3 are (6) "Economy and Trade," (7) Technology and Artistic Production" and (8) "Religion and Science." In vol. 4 are (9) "Language, Writing, and Literature," (10) "Visual and Performing Arts" and (11) "Retrospective Essays." The editors state that the first and last parts serve to bracket the work with essays on the impact of the ancient Near East on ancient and modern Western cultures, and that the rest of the essays follow a natural sequence (p. xxxi). "History and Culture," the largest category (and in many ways the closest to the heart of the entire endeavor), is deliberately placed somewhere other than the beginning, reflecting the editors' desires to make this a true multi-disciplinary work, with history (and, to a lesser degree, culture) not being allowed to dominate the work as it has in so many studies of antiquity.
The work's broad scope is evident from its major divisions, but even more so from the titles of its individual essays. Very generally, each part covers its subject matter by considering Egypt, Mesopotamia, Iran, Anatolia and Syro-Palestine, in that order. Thus, for example, one can find essays in Part 4 ("Social Institutions") on "Private Life" for four of the five areas (one is missing for Iran/Persia), or in Part 5 ("History and Culture") on "The History of ...: An Overview" for all five areas. In between is a wealth of more specific essays on the history of each area, for example, in Egypt, "Builders of the Pyramids," "The Middle Kingdom in Egypt" or "Pharaoh Ramesses II and His Times." Also, in each part there are essays particular to certain times or places that have no counterparts elsewhere, for example, "The Kingdom and Civilization of Kush in Northeast Africa," "Central Asia and the Caucasus in the Bronze Age," "Midas of Gordion and the Anatolian Kingdom of Phrygia" or "Private Commerce and Banking in Achaemenid Babylon."
The general chronological limits of the work extend back to the beginning of the third millennium BC, with the origins of writing in Mesopotamia and Egypt, and down to Alexander the Great's conquest of Persian in 330 BC, although there are exceptions even to these broad limits in both directions. The geographical limits include primarily Egypt, Syro-Palestine, Mesopotamia, and Anatolia, and more peripherally, Iran, the Arabian Peninsula, Northeast Africa and various oft-neglected Aegean and Anatolian cultures.
These limits are unremarkable to almost any Biblical scholar today, but it should at least be noted that the work self-consciously avoids being a "Lands of the Bible" tool. Civilizations, topics and time periods that are both mentioned and not mentioned in the Bible are covered with equal interest. The editors and contributors clearly reflect the dominant late-20th-century desire in the secular academy to avoid any specific Bibliocentric interest. The Bible is often referred to and used as a source, but it is clearly peripheral to the bulk of the endeavor here (and it is not often trusted when it is referred to). One essay - but, revealingly, only one - is devoted to a topic for which the Bible is the primary source: "Ahab of Israel and Jehoshaphat of Judah: The Syro-Palestinian Corridor in the Ninth Century." Otherwise, the Bible's materials are dealt with under such categories as "Ancient Syria and Palestine," "Canaan and Ancient Israel" or "Canaanite and Hebrew Thought."
A glimpse into how this work interfaces with the Bible can be found in the essay on "The Hymn to Aten: Akhenaten Worships the Sole God." Akhenaten was the 14th-century BC Egyptian king often mentioned in connection with Moses and Biblical monotheism. This ten-page essay includes an original translation of the hymn, followed by an excellent exposition of it, under two major headings: (1) "Content" (with subheadings "Introduction" and "The Attributes of God") and (2) "Style" (with subheadings "Descriptive Power" and "Tone"). The author, John L. Foster, writes in a clear, engaging style himself, and he clearly is impressed with this hymn. He writes, "[I belong] with those who find The Hymn to Aten one of the most remarkable documents in all of ancient Egyptian history - and, indeed, in all of the ancient world" (p. 1754). He devotes almost three full pages to ten "attributes of God" found in the hymn, including "God is one," "God is the creator of the universe," God is Alpha and Omega, the span of Time," and so forth. Nowhere in the body of the essay is the Bible or the Biblical God mentioned, however. Parallels to the Bible are mentioned, but they are dealt with in two boxes, one entitled "The Hymn to Aten and Psalm 104" and "Moses and Egyptian Monotheism." In both boxes, Foster is fairly restrained, slow to draw any significant connections between the hymn and material in the Bible. This restraint for the most part is commendable, given the parallelomania that has been far too prevalent in the past. However, evangelicals will be unhappy to see that Foster gives Akhenaten a place in history but is reluctant to do so for Moses: "Akhanaten was, of course, a historical personage....Moses, on the other hand, is a figure of tradition and legend whose historicity is not proven" (p. 1760).
The work's list of contributors is a "Who's Who" of first-rank scholars of the ancient Near East. It is a diverse group: The editors state that the contributors' average age is the mid-to-late forties, 20% are women and that they come from 16 countries and five continents (pp. xxviii-xxix). This group gives the work its authoritative stamp, guaranteeing the work's place as the standard reference tool on the topic for decades to come. The contributors have written synthetic essays that generally reflect the scholarly consensus on their assigned topics, but the editors have given them generous leeway, so that most essays reflect the scholars' individual perspectives on the material, as well. In many cases, the essays go beyond being overviews or syntheses, and materially advance the discussion of the question(s) at hand.
From a planning perspective, the work is distinctive in several ways. For one thing, the editors chose to commission only one essay per contributor (for a total of 189), even though many of the contributors obviously have the expertise to have written multiple essays. This was in keeping with their philosophy of making this a multi-dimensional, multi-perspectival work. Also the work was produced in the astonishingly short time of six years after the project was first discussed. (The assignment of one essay per contributor undoubtedly aided in this regard.)
Another distinctive feature of the work is its extraordinarily lengthy index, running to 148 pages. It usefulness (and limitations) can be illustrated by reference once again to Akhenaten. There is no essay dealing solely with him, as there are, for example, for other kings in Egypt and elsewhere (e.g. Ramesses II in Egypt; Sargon of Akkad and Naram-Sin, Shulgi of Ur, Hammurabi, Esarhaddon, Nabonidus in Mesopotamia; Darius I in Persia; and Khattushili III in Anatolia). However, one essay has Akhenaten's name in its title - "The Hymn to the Aten"(in Part 7, "Religion and Science," and mentioned above) - and one deals with his capital city: "Akhetaten: A Portrait of Art of an Ancient Egyptian Capital" (in Part 5, "History and Culture"). These are both listed alphabetically in the index in bold-face type, indicating that they are full-blown essays listed also in the table of contents. Also, "Akhenaten, king of Egypt" appears as a separate entry in the index, with 27 entries under his name, as does "Akhetaten (Amarna)," also with 27 sub-entries. The entries under "Ahkenaten" - such as "accession of," "in art," "Aziru of Amurru and," "concept of God," "Freud on," "religious revolution of," "technical and scientific innovations," "tomb of, funerary figures" - point the reader into many different articles in the work on this king, not only the two just mentioned. In fact, these two articles are limited in their focus: The first is an essay on the literary composition most clearly embodying Akhenaten's "monotheism" and the second focuses on Akhenaten's capital city (known also by its modern name of Tell el-Amarna), not the king per se. For a full picture of Akhenaten in history, including scholarly judgments about his lasting influences in Egypt and elsewhere, one must consult various articles, using the index. Unfortunately, no entry under "Akhenaten" specifically directs the reader to the hymn, this king's most famous work. One might stumble upon it by looking up Akhenaten's"concept of God" or by thinking to look under "Hymn," but this particular indexing omission is unfortunate. Nevertheless, the index is enormously helpful and should be used extensively by those wishing to research specific topics. A useful companion to the index and table of contents is the "Cultural Table of Contents" on pp. vi-vii, which sets each essay in the work into a grid, the two axes of which are the 11 parts and the various geographical areas. Thus, if one wanted to study "Religion and Science" in "Egypt," one would find the appropriate box on this grid and discover eight essays therein, which are also found in the table of contents.
This is an extremely useful reference tool on the ancient Near East that will serve several generations of students and scholars. It is a work I sorely wished had existed twenty years ago, during my own graduate-student days. I recommend it to anyone needing authoritative, in-depth information about almost any aspect of ancient Near Eastern life, reflecting the state of the discipline in the secular academy in the late 20th century.
David M. Howard, Jr.
(This article originally appeared in Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 41.4 (Dec 1998): 693-95.)