Noga Ayali-Darshan covers the wisdom works and vernacular sayings of Syria-Palestine from the Late Bronze Age. This material exists in some form of Akkadian, including Sumero-Akkadian and Akkadian-Hurrian, all of which comes from sites at Ugarit and/or Emar. Darshan organises the works into four types: practical wisdom, critical wisdom, disputation poems and fables, and righteous sufferer compositions. Much of her chapter will introduce readers to the texts themselves, by way of their provenance, language and versions. Additionally, some thematic and particular linguistic reflections are given. In short, this chapter provides an introduction to an emerging and perhaps neglected area of wisdom from the biblical world.

In this chapter, a wide-angle historical approach contextualizes the use and significance of precious metal money in the broader region of the Levant from the Late Bronze Age to the end of the Iron Age. It is argued that the weakening of centralized authority – reflected by the collapse of Egyptian rule in the southern Levant – left trade networks and routes vulnerable, profoundly affecting trade networks and leading to an increasing reliance on precious metal in order to carry out transactions. Next, the importance of precious metal money and fiscal institutions are examined in the context of emerging territorial states, based on a critical approach to biblical sources documenting the hoarding and use of gold and silver in tributary payments to overlords. Rather than having stimulated monetization, the incorporation of the southern Levant into the Neo-Assyrian Empire by the late eighth and seventh century is argued to have led to a depletion of the region from its silver. Only after the Egyptian takeover do we again observe fresh silver – e.g. from Aegean sources – arriving to the region through Egypt.

Chapter 1 functions as introduction that sets the stage for the study as a whole. In this chapter, I discuss cases of royal illness in the Bible, cuneiform writings and early Jewish literature. I also lay out my methodological framework. The introduction of the book scrutinizes the categories of disease, illness, and disability and then reviews how they have been treated in academic discussions of physical disorders. This chapter also involves a short review of the different theoretical frameworks that have been applied to the study of illness in the ancient world which is followed by the introduction of my own approach of illness as frame or the framing of illness. Finally, I outline the organization of the book by giving an overview of the key passages that will be examined in the course of the study

In the broad scope of Western Literature, the Bible fits squarely within what is called Ancient Near Eastern literature. This article surveys the literature of antiquity by examining three separate pieces from three separate cultural contexts. The Gilgamesh Epic represents the literature of a large and affluent Mesopotamian empire. The Baal Cycle considers a serial poem from the small but influential city-state of Ugarit in northwestern Syria. The Mesha Stele, or Moabite Stone, stands for a single literary piece from the small and relatively provincial kingdom of Moab. Each of these documents is summarized with an eye toward literary finesse and the fluidity of texts. The larger question of how to define literature based on such diverse exemplars as these is also raised, with the understanding that literature was written to be shared. Ancient texts, including the Bible, are misunderstood when they are treated as final forms.