Reddit reviews A History of the Ancient Near East, ca. 3000-323 BC, 3rd Edition (Blackwell History of the Ancient World)

Unfortunately, a lot of the readings on the topic are not widely available to the public, since they are in Archaeology and History journal articles. I read a lot of this stuff in university.

However, if you want to get into the Late Bronze Age in general, there are a few really good resources available to the general public.

1177 B.C. The Year Civilization Collapsed is a great survey of the collapse of the Bronze Age civilizations in the Near East. It's great for understanding just how complex and interconnected the world of the 12th century B.C. and earlier was.

A History of the Ancient Near East by van de Mieroop, and

The Ancient Near East by James Pritcherd both present an overview of the Ancient Near East, though both go into what is considered 'Classical' Near East as well.

Also, anything by Trevor Bryce, is worth a read, especially his work on the Hittites.

Tutkittavaa on jäljellä ihan valtava määrä. Lähi-idässä on monia aikansa suurkaupunkeja joita ei ole vielä edes löydetty, puhumattakaan pienemmistä kohteista. Historiallista ainesta tutkimista odottamassa siellä on edelleen ihan käsittämätön määrä. Meillä ei tosiaankaan ole mitään hyvin tarkkaa kuvaa muinaishistoriasta, vaan tulkinnat perustuvat monesti hyvin rajalliseen aineistoon, ja aukkoja on valtavat määrät.

Asiaa ei auta, että viimeiset parikymmentä vuotta lähi-idässä on sattuneesta syystä ollut aika haastavaa järjestää kaivauksia. Kun sota tuhoaa ja paikalliset ryöstävät muinaisaarteita, kaikki odottelu tarkoittaa menetettyä tietoa. Siksi alueilla, joissa voidaan kaivaa, on kiire saada asioita aikaiseksi.

Mitä hyötyä näitä asioita sitten on tutkia? Varmasti voitaisiin jatkaa samaan malliin vaikkei kukaan tutkisi enää yhtään enempää muinaishistoriaa. Omasta mielestäni jo se, että on tietoa, jota emme tunne, on syy tutkia sitä. Ei voi olla mahdollista ymmärtää miksi maailma tänään näyttää siltä, miltä näyttää, ellei ymmärrä mm. lähi-idässä vuosituhansia sitten sattuneita tapahtumia. Näiden asioiden lukeminen ihan jo maallikkona antaa paljon perspektiiviä maailmaan. Itse koen ymmärtäväni esim. juutalaisuuden(ja sitä kautta kristinuskon ja islamin) syntyä paremmin, koska ymmärrän vähän sitä kontekstia, missä se tapahtui. Myös lukeminen siitä, kuinka tuhansia vuotta sitten kuolleet hallitsijat tärkeilivät omilla saavutuksillaan pistää miettimään miten kritiikittä nykyäänkin suhtaudumme ajatukseen yksittäisten ihmisten erityisestä tärkeydestä.

Toiseen kysymykseen voi vastata, että ala ei ole missään hyvin rahoitettua. Siksipä laadukkaista tutkijoista pitäisi pitää kiinni, mistä tahansa niitä löytyykin. Ei siitä välttämättä suoraa rahallista hyötyä ole, mutta tieto karttuu, ja kukaties sen myötä ymmärrys ja sivistys.

Jos oikeasti mietit, mitä hyötyä koko huuhaasta on, mikset lukisi asiaan liittyen itse? Helpompi päättää onko asia hyödyllinen, kun sitä tuntee vähän.

http://www.amazon.com/History-Ancient-3000-323-Blackwell-World/dp/111871816X

Ylläoleva on aika helppolukuinen ja hyvä yleiskatsaus aiheeseen jos asia lainkaan kiinnostaa.

Šulmu, /u/KlingonLinux! I gotchoo on "Canaanite" and Israelite (they were more or less the "same" people religio-culturally for most of Antiquity, and definitely genetically/ethnically) and Punic/Phoenician (Iron Age Levantine ["Canaanite" and Israelite peoples and so on] peoples abroad throughout the Mediterranean as far West as Southern Spain/the island of Ibiza and North Africa) sources, awīlu.

Some necessary clarification : I routinely put "Canaanite" in scare-quotes, because there was no definitive, proto-national much less national identity for so-called "Canaanites" in the way that Israelites and Judahites eventually had by the 1st millennium BCE, and the people of Syro-Palestine during the Middle to Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age would overwhelmingly identify and operate by clan, by tribe, or by city-state before calling themselves and operating as Knaʿni (Ugaritic, meaning "people of Canaan"). "Canaanite" religious forms consonantly varied quite noticeably by city-state, in ways that, say, Egyptian ones did not, even taking into account "alternative" (but not competing) Egyptian local theologies and so on. Speaking in perhaps excessively general terms, there was a State religion overarching the regional ones in Egypt which, in effect, bound them together as a cooperative dynamic unit. "Canaan" as such had no such large-scale, cohesive "religious infrastructure" of Egypt's much less Mesopotamian Kingdoms' and Empires' like, and it didn't "help" that the exceptionally powerful Egyptian Empire of the Late Middle Kingdom and New Kingdom Periods and contemporaneous Mesopotamian and Hittite Empires were constantly vying for control of the North Sinai and Syro-Palestine. The economic centers of "Canaan" were, indeed, frequently subservient to Egypt throughout Bronze Age history, with Egyptian Kings investing governors and mayors of its own throughout "Canaanite" territories following the Thutmosid Conquest, much to the personal danger of said governors and mayors (who were neither particularly liked nor trusted by their Levantine subjects nor by Egyptian officials) and much to the cantankerous chagrin of the Levantine peoples living under Egyptian Imperial rule. Which is to say nothing of Egyptian-mandated relocations of restive Levantine people and so forth.

Furthermore, Hebrew Biblical literature intensely confuses what "Canaanite" even means in a religio-cultural sense, using the term simply to inveigh against religious beliefs and conventions, regardless of actual origin, Deuteronomic Jews did not wish to see carry over from their ancestral religion(s)/culture(s) and from neighboring religions/cultures (e.g., Mesopotamian and Egyptian religions/cultures. See Leviticus 18, Deuteronomy 7, and Ezekiel 23 as but three illustrations of the aforementioned) into newly-minted Judaism and what had then become the Israelite-Judahite "national" identities (primarily in politically-motivated defiance, it should be noted, of their later Master, the Neo-Assyrian Empire, which had made of the internally-fractured Kingdoms of Israel and Judah satellite states through rigorous opportunistic military conquest and serious economic and political strong-arming, beginning with the great and cunning King Tukultī-apil-Ešarra/"Tiglath-Pileser" III). A few scholars and especially many would-be Revivalists not academically-trained frequently, unwittingly hang their understanding of "Canaanite" upon all this confusion -- and the latter not in anything like a Jewish context nor through a Jewish hermeneutic, either, while still treating iffy Jewish accounts embedded in Scripture entirely too literally, which makes it an even more weird and defunct confusion.

Now, it's very important to form a baseline understanding of the historical circumstances of the Near East concerning "Canaan," what came out of it, its influential neighbors, and religio-cultural receptors. I know it feels like unnecessary drudgery to many people, but the religious tidbits don't make much sense and their use in/continued relevance to Modernity can't be adequately evaluated without learning and understanding their historical contexts, which is where a lot of would-be Revivalists go very wrong, in my opinion -- especially since "Canaanite" and other non-Kemetic ANE religious Revivals are still very much in their formative stages and aren't being led by people with necessary, thorough backgrounds in Ancient Near Eastern Studies. For this, I recommend beginning with Donald B. Redford's Egypt, Canaan, and Israel in Ancient Times, Marc Van De Mieroop's A History of the Ancient Near East: ca. 3000 to 323 BC, Amanda H. Podany's Brotherhood of Kings: How International Relations Shaped the Ancient Near East, and Mark Woolmer's Ancient Phoenicia: An Introduction. They're not short texts, apart from Woolmer's that is, but they will give you a decent, fairly comprehensive understanding of the circumstances of the ANE.

Concerning "Canaanite" and Israelite, etc., religious details and developments, just about anything by Mark S. Smith, Rainer Albertz (namely, this massive text he co-authored with Rüdiger Schmitt), Daniel E. Fleming, and Dennis Pardee are quite sound.

Stories from Ancient Canaan, 2nd Edition edited by Mark S. Smith and Michael D. Coogan is probably where you're looking to start vis-a-vis "Canaanite" religion(s), as most people like to get at the mythic material first and foremost. After that, I would definitely recommend picking up The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel (Biblical Resource Series), along with Pardee's Ritual and Cult at Ugarit (Writings from the Ancient World) and Nicolas Wyatt's Religious Texts from Ugarit -- there should be a free PDF of the latter still floating around the nets somewhere.

While William Foxwell Albright has since become outdated in areas, his works are nevertheless necessary, now "classic" reads. Of particular use and importance is his Yahweh and the Gods of Canaan: An Historical Analysis of Two Contrasting Faiths

Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses of Canaan by John Day and the Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible, Second Edition are handy, but relatively scarce and expensive.

Tryggve N. D. Mettinger is a much-beloved scholar of mine, though be aware that in The Riddle of the Resurrection: "Dying and Rising Gods" in the Ancient Near East -- one of the very few decent and comprehensive texts in ANE "comparative religious studies" -- wherein he addresses a few major Levantine Gods like Ba'l-Hadad, he unfortunately demonstrates a very poor comprehension of Greek, so if you ever pick that title up please do remember to take his interpretations in the chapter concerning the Phoenician God Melqart with a metric ton of salt.

Aaron J. Brody's Each Man Cried Out to His God: The Specialized Religion of Canaanite and Phoenician Seafarers was a short, widely-accessible, and enjoyable volume; he covers quite a few lesser-known and under-explored elements of Levantine religions therein.

It sounds like a lot, I'm sure, and there's so much more to read and discuss beyond all these, but hopefully this will provide a decent springboard for you into the crazy, wonderful world of Levantine religions.

I hope this helped, and if you need anything else on this, or concerning Mesopotamia and Egypt, feel free to ask anytime.

> I already read that one, what is wrong with that one??

I recently purchased Robert Alter's Hebrew Bible translation, which he translated with the goal of maintaining the literary characteristics of the original Hebrew. He made a snarky comment that was something along the lines of "The authors of the KJV had an amazing grasp of the English language, but not so much biblical Hebrew, while modern translations have an amazing grasp of biblical Hebrew, but not so much English." For a casual read, IMO, whatever speaks to you is fine, but you need to be aware the KJV is not the most accurate.

As for your quest for a text, I am not one of the scholars here, but I found this book approachable: A History of the Ancient Near East, ca. 3000-323 BC.

First off, it sounds like you are respectful of her beliefs and want to to be kind, which is the way to go if you want to keep the relationship healthy.

People believe because they want to believe, not because they went through and systematic philosophical analysis. People also get insulted when you psychoanalyze them, wrt their religious beliefs or otherwise.

I don't think you need to explain anything. Either you have faith or you don't. And you just don't.

But should anyone want to do apologetics at you, stepping out of the framework entirely is the way to go, imo. (I wouldn't do this with a girlfriend because you probably want to keep getting along with her and this is a very emotional thing.)

You know that the scientific method, while not perfect, is the best tool we have for understanding the universe. Well, religion is just another thing going on in the universe that scientists study. There are tons and tons of books on where, how, and why the cult of Yahweh emerged and developed. They even have study Bibles annotated with real historical and cultural context.

I recently went through a Mesopotamia phase and read a bunch of stuff and I would recommend A History of the Ancient Near East by Van De Mieroop.