The stories collected in the Hebrew Bible provide for many an essential and original vision of a moral and coherent universe. It is thus surprising to learn that these stories were not simply the product of a single culture, of Hebrew poets, prophets, and priests; they had strange and diverse origins in the various civilizations of the ancient Near East.

Recent archaeological and linguistic research shows that these civilizations - among them Egyptian, Persian, Greek, and Hebrew - shared many common legends and even characters.

Furthermore, each season of archaeological work brings new discoveries that allow us to fill in gaps in our knowledge, of both Israel in particular and the ancient Near East in general. Among the most notable of the recent discoveries have been the first extrabiblical references to the house of David, found in an inscription on a stela at Dan. This and other exciting discoveries animate this thorough revision of Cyrus Gordon's classic text, The Ancient Near East.

Professors Gordon and Rendsburg bring their combined expertise on the Bible and the ancient Near East to produce a comprehensive and cohesive account of Israelite history, literature, and theology against a backdrop of ancient civilization.

In preparing this volume the authors have sought to understand the Bible on its own terms by situating it in the world of the ancient Near East. By concentrating on what the language and literature of the Bible meant to contemporary hearers, Gordon and Rendsburg reveal undetected subtleties in the familiar narratives of the Bible.