First Glance

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The Sumerians invented writing and then went on to use it to produce the first written work in the most popular genre in modern publishing: the cookbook. (So far as we know, however, they did not produce anything in the second most popular genre: the diet book!) The recent discovery of these ancient cookbooks gives Assyriologists the opportunity to interact with the past in a way rarely afforded to other scholars: They followed the recipes and ate the results (and so can you), as William W. Hallo describes in “The Oldest Cookbooks in the World.”

One of the world’s leading scholars on Mesopotamian civilization, Hallo has taught at Yale since 1962 and has served as the William M. Laffan Professor of Assyriology and Babylonian Literature since 1976. He is curator of the Yale Babylonian Collection and a member of BR’s Editorial Advisory Board. Hallo’s publications number more than 150, including his latest book, The Book of the People (Scholars Press, 1991).

Is there a biblical book more beloved than the Psalms? These glories of Hebrew poetry record the human soul’s yearning for contact with the ultimate source of life. They continue to speak through the centuries to people of many faiths. In a preview of his forthcoming book, Nahum M. Sarna, in “Songs of the Heart—Understanding the Book of Psalms,” describes the organization of the Psalter, noting, for example, that it is divided into five books to mirror the Five Books of Moses. We also feature, in the associated sidebar, Sarna’s commentary to Psalm 94, which grapples with a question as relevant today as when it was posed by the Psalmist nearly 3,000 years ago: “How long shall evil prevail?”

Sarna is Dora Golding Professor Emeritus of biblical studies at Brandeis University, where he is also a past chairman of the Near Eastern and Judaic studies department. Sarna has also taught at Columbia; Yale; Dropsie College, in Philadelphia; and Andover Newton Theological School, in Newton, Massachusetts. He is general editor of the Jewish Publication Society’s Commentary on the Torah and author of its volumes on Genesis and Exodus.

Matthew, Mark, Luke and John—the names trip off the tongue, thanks to their utter familiarity. But what about the Secret Book of James, the Gospel of Thomas or the Gospel of Mary Magdalene? These noncanonical gospels are little known outside scholarly circles but they, too, like the better-known and canonical Gospels, are ancient witnesses to the varied beliefs found in earliest Christianity. Indeed, many scholars think that some of these non-canonical gospels preserve earlier versions of the sayings of Jesus, for example, than those found in their canonical cousins. Robert J. Miller introduces us to “The Gospels That Didn’t Make the Cut.”

Miller teaches religion and humanities at Midway College, in Midway, Kentucky, and is a member of the Jesus Seminar, a group of scholars that has been meeting regularly to vote on the likelihood that statements attributed to Jesus are authentic. Miller is the editor of The Complete Gospels (Polebridge, 1992), a compilation of canonical and noncanonical gospels in a contemporary English translation.

E.T., Steven Spielberg’s friendly extra-terrestrial, must be the telephone company’s favorite customer: He phoned home. But, to move from 20th-century science fiction to an important figure in Genesis, Joseph never let his loving father Jacob know that he, Joseph, was still alive, even after he rose to a position of power and authority in Egypt. Arnold Ages explores Joseph’s puzzling failure in “Why Didn’t Joseph Call Home?”

Ages is professor of French language and literature at the University of Waterloo, in Waterloo, Ontario.

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A Note on Style

B.C.E. (Before the Common Era) and C.E. (Common Era), used by some of our authors and often used in scholarly literature, are the alternative designations corresponding to B.C. and A.D.

The Sumerians invented writing and then went on to use it to produce the first written work in the most popular genre in modern publishing: the cookbook. (So far as we know, however, they did not produce anything in the second most popular genre: the diet book!) The recent discovery of these ancient cookbooks gives Assyriologists the opportunity to interact with the past in a way rarely afforded to other scholars: They followed the recipes and ate the results (and so can you), as William W. Hallo describes in “The Oldest Cookbooks in the World.” One of the world’s […]