SCAS News - 23 October, 2014
New Book by Current SCAS Fellow Isaac Kalimi
The book Sennacherib at the Gates of Jerusalem: Story, History and Historiography, edited by current
SCAS Fellow
Isaac Kalimi and Seth Richardson, has recently been published by Brill (2014). Isaac Kalimi
is Gutenberg
Research Professor of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies and the History
of Ancient Israel
at Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz and
Senior Research Associate at the University
of Chicago. He is
in
residence at the Collegium during the academic year 2014-15.
ABOUT THE BOOK:
Sennacherib and his ill-fated siege of Jerusalem fascinated the ancient world.
Twelve scholars—in Hebrew
Bible, Assyriology, archaeology, Egyptology,
Classics, Aramaic, Rabbinic and Christian literatures—
examine how and why
the Sennacherib story was told and re-told in more than a dozen cultures for
over a thousand years. From Akkadian to Arabic, stories and legends about
Sennacherib became the first
vernacular tales of the imperial world. These
essays address outstanding historical issues of the campaign and
the sources, and press on to expose the stories’ theological and cultural roles in inner-cultural dialogues, ethnic
origin stories, and morality tales. This book is the first of its kind for readers seeking out historical and
historiographic bridges between the ancient and late antique worlds.
