Sara J. Milstein's Books

Tracking the Master Scribe

Revision through Introduction in Biblical and Mesopotamian Literature

By: Sara J. Milstein

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Tracking the Master Scribe

Revision through Introduction in Biblical and Mesopotamian Literature

By: Sara J. Milstein

When we encounter a text, whether ancient or modern, we typically start at the beginning and work our way toward the end. In Tracking the Master Scribe, Sara J. Milstein demonstrates that for biblical and Mesopotamian literature, this habit can lead to misinterpretation. In the ancient Near East, "master scribes"--those who had the authority to produce and revise literature--regularly modified their texts in the course of transmission. One of the most effective techniques for change was to add something new to the front, what Milstein calls "revision through introduction." This method allowed scribes to preserve their received material while simultaneously recasting it. As a result, many biblical and Mesopotamian texts continue to be interpreted solely through the lens of their final contributions. First impressions carry weight. Tracking the Master Scribe demonstrates what is to be gained when we engage questions of literary history in the context of how scribes actually worked. Drawing upon the two earliest corpora that allow us to track large-scale change, the book provides substantial hard evidence of revision through introduction, as well as a set of detailed case studies that offer fresh insight into well-known biblical and Mesopotamian texts. The result is the first comprehensive profile of this key scribal method: one that was ubiquitous in the ancient Near East and epitomizes the attitudes of the master scribes toward the literature that they left behind.

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265

Publisher

Oxford University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0190630833

ISBN 13

9780190630836

Making a Case

The Practical Roots of Biblical Law

By: Sara J. Milstein

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Making a Case

The Practical Roots of Biblical Law

By: Sara J. Milstein

Outside of the Bible, all of the known Near Eastern law collections were produced in the third to second millennia BCE, in cuneiform on clay tablets, and in major cities in Mesopotamia and in the Hittite Empire. None of the major sites in Syria that have yielded cuneiform tablets has borne even a fragment of a law collection, even though several have produced ample legal documentation. Excavations at Nuzi have also turned up numerous legal documents, but again, no law collection. Even Egypt has not yielded a collection of laws. As such, the biblical texts that scholars regularly identify as law collections represent the only "western," non-cuneiform expressions of the genre in the ancient Near East, produced by societies not known for their political clout, and separated in time from "other" collections by centuries. Making a Case: The Practical Roots of Biblical Law challenges the long-held notion that Israelite and Judahite scribes either made use of "old" law collections or set out to produce law collections in the Near Eastern sense of the genre. Instead, what we call "biblical law" is closer in form and function to another, oft-neglected Mesopotamian genre: legal-pedagogical texts. During their education, Mesopotamian scribes studied a variety of legal-oriented school texts, including sample contracts, fictional cases, short sequences of laws, and legal phrasebooks. When biblical law is viewed in the context of these legal-pedagogical texts from Mesopotamia, its practical roots in a set of comparable legal exercises begin to emerge.

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217

Publisher

Oxford University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0190911824

ISBN 13

9780190911829

The Buried Foundation of the Gilgamesh Epic

The Akkadian Huwawa Narrative

By: Daniel E. Fleming,Sara J. Milstein

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The Buried Foundation of the Gilgamesh Epic

The Akkadian Huwawa Narrative

By: Daniel E. Fleming,Sara J. Milstein

The Akkadian Gilgamesh Epic, perhaps the most famous of Mesopotamian literature, has been considered the artistry of one author inspired by Sumerian tales. Specialists have assumed that all the earliest evidence (ca. 1800-1700 BCE) reflects this creative unity. Deep contrasts in characterization and narrative logic, however, distinguish the central adventure to defeat the monster Huwawa from what precedes and follows it. The Huwawa narrative stands on its own, so that the epic must have been composed from this prior Akkadian composition. Recognition of the tale embedded in the epic allows each block of material to be understood on its own terms. Such literary-historical investigation from contemporary texts is new to Assyriology and may produce important results when applied to other Mesopotamian writing. "The book is well written and tightly argued...This makes it a first point of reference for anyone interested in the OB evidence for the Gilgamesh Epic." Scott C. Jones, Covenant College

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248

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BRILL

Published Date

ISBN 10

9047440838

ISBN 13

9789047440833

Making a Case

The Practical Roots of Biblical Law

By: Sara J. Milstein

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Making a Case

The Practical Roots of Biblical Law

By: Sara J. Milstein

Average ratings

N/A

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Solve jigsaw puzzle

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Page Count

217

Publisher

Oxford University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0190911824

ISBN 13

9780190911829

Tracking the Master Scribe

Revision through Introduction in Biblical and Mesopotamian Literature

By: Sara J. Milstein

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Tracking the Master Scribe

Revision through Introduction in Biblical and Mesopotamian Literature

By: Sara J. Milstein

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Page Count

265

Publisher

Oxford University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0190205407

ISBN 13

9780190205409

Making a Case

The Practical Roots of Biblical Law

By: Sara Jessica Milstein

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Making a Case

The Practical Roots of Biblical Law

By: Sara Jessica Milstein

Making a Case' challenges the long-held notion that Israelite and Judahite scribes either made use of "old" law collections or set out to produce law collections in the Near Eastern sense of the genre. Sara J. Milstein instead proposes that what we call "biblical law" is closer in form and function to another, oft-neglected Mesopotamian genre: legal-pedagogical texts.

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Page Count

216

Published Date

ISBN 10

0190911832

ISBN 13

9780190911836

Book's by Sara J. Milstein

Tracking the Master Scribe

Tracking the Master Scribe

Making a Case

Making a Case

The Buried Foundation of the Gilgamesh Epic

The Buried Foundation of the Gilgamesh Epic

Making a Case

Making a Case

Tracking the Master Scribe

Tracking the Master Scribe

Making a Case

Making a Case

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