The Ugaritic Baal Cycle: Volume I

by Mark S. Smith

Publisher:

Brill

, 1994

Overview

The Ugaritic Baal Cycle offers a translation and the first commentary on the Ugaritic Baal Cycle. The longest and most important religious text from ancient Ugarit, the Baal Cycle witnesses to both the religious worldview of Ugarit and the larger background to many of the formative religious concepts and images in the Bible. The volume treats introductory matters such as date, order and continuity of the tablets, the history of interpretation, and finally, a new proposal for the interpretation of the text that draws on the insights of previous views as well as newer evidence. The commentary proper provides bibliography, text, textual notes, literary structure, and detailed commentary for each column in the first two tablets.

Key Features

• First ever translation and commentary of the Ugaritic Baal Cycle
• Translated and authored by a leading Ugaritic scholar

Praise for the Print Edition

. . . this volume and its successors will surely and deservedly enjoy in Ugaritic studies the same long and respectful usage by generations of scholars that the pioneering critical commentaries of biblical texts enjoyed.

—Dennis Pardee, Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 1998

The author's views are always temperate and balanced, and his handling of alternative positions irenic and entirely fair.

—N. Wyatt, Society for Old Testament Study, 1998

Product Details

• Title: The Ugaritic Baal Cycle Volume I: Introduction with Text, Translation and Commentary of KTU 1.1–1.2
• Author: Mark S. Smith
• Series: The Ugaritic Baal Cycle
• Publisher: Brill
• Print Publication Date: 1994
• Logos Release Date: 2011
• Pages: 446
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
• Subjects: Baal (Deity); Ugarit (Extinct city) › Religion
• ISBNs: 9789004099951, 9004099956
• Resource ID: LLS:UGBAALCYCL01
• Resource Type: Commentary
• Metadata Last Updated: 2024-03-25T21:04:45Z

About Mark S. Smith

Mark S. Smith is Helena Professor of Old Testament Literature and Exegesis at Princeton Theological Seminary and Skirball Professor Emeritus of Hebrew Bible and Ancient Near Eastern Studies at New York University. He has also served as visiting professor at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome and at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. An award-winning author, Smith has written sixteen books, including The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel; The Origins of Biblical Monotheism: Israel’s Polytheistic Background and the Ugaritic Texts; God in Translation: Deities in Cross-Cultural Discourse in the Biblical World; How Human Is God? Seven Questions about God and Humanity in the Bible; and Where the Gods Are: Spatial Dimensions of Anthropomorphism in the Biblical World. His current research focuses on a commentary on the book of Judges, coauthored with archaeologist Elizabeth Bloch-Smith.