The World around the Old Testament: The People and Places of the Ancient Near East

As readers of this blog will be aware I have been reading this big book for a while now but have eventually now finished it. It was recommended at one of the recent Tyndale House gatherings. It's the sort of book I should have read when preparing for ministry I guess. Better late than never. Thirteen contributors introduce us to peoples and places either mentioned in the biblical text or from that part of the world. Those covered include the obvious Egyptians, Philistines, Babylonians, Persians and Greeks but also the Assyrians, Phoenicians and Transjordanians (Moab, Ammon and Edom) and further, the Amorites, Ugaritians, Hittites/Hurrians and Arabians. The essays are similar in length but necessarily vary in approach and some contain rather difficult passages that are not easy to negotiate. One huge disappointment is the pretty complete sell out to modern academia that means a very sceptical attitude is taken to Scripture. Not only is this not an evangelical postion but I would guess a lot is lost simply because the academic world is currently so atheistic. Copious footnotes and plenty of pictures add to the value of this very interesting book.

10 further interesting words from that book by Arnold and Strawn

Adam Jones from Kelowna, BC, Canada, CC BY-SA 2.0
<https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

1. geographicon - this word seems to be pretty much unique to this publication. It appears to mean a word formed to describe a geographical location.
2. grapheme - a unit (such as a letter or digraph) of a writing system or a set of units of a writing system (such as letters and letter combinations) that represent a phoneme
3. epigraphy - the study of inscriptions, especially deciphering them
4. orthographic - correctly spelled
5. ostracon/ostraca - a fragment (as of pottery) containing an inscription
6. carburized - a metal combined or impregnated with carbon
7. morphology - the study and description of word formation (such as inflection, derivation and compounding) in language
8. razzia - forays, raids; plundering and destructive incursions
9. bulla - an inscribed clay, soft metal (lead or tin), bitumen or wax token used in commercial and legal documentation as a form of authentication and for tamper-proofing
10. anthroponym - personal name

(Also creolization - the process of cultural mixing and creation, where different, often unequal, cultures nteract to form new social, linguistic, and cultural identities; corvée -unpaid forced labour in lieu of tax)

10 more interesting words found in The world around the Old Testament (Arnold/Strawn)

1. abecedary - an alphabet book, primer, or an inscription that lists the letters of an alphabet in order
2. appanage - a provision made for the maintenance of the younger children of kings and princes, consisting of a gift of land, an official position, or money
3. chthonic - relating to or inhabiting the underworld
4. orthostat - an upright stone or slab forming part of a structure or set in the ground
5. sedentist - a person who stays in ooen place for a long time (opposite to nomad)
6. bucolic - of or relating to shepherds or herdsmen or typical of rural life
7. hypocoristic - a pet name or diminutive form of a name
8. glyptic - of or concerning carving or engraving
9. theonym - the name of a deity
10. ethnolinguistic - associated with a particular ethnicity and a particular variety of language

10 interesting words found in The world around the Old Testament (Arnold/Strawn)

1. littoral - relating to or situated on the shore of the sea or a lake
2. floruit - a date or period during which a person or people was known to have been alive or active
3. alluvium - loose, unconsolidated soil, silt, sand, gravel or clay deposited by running water,
4. ramified - to ramify is to form branches
5. lodestar - a star used to guide a ship on its travels
6. sapiential - relating to wisdom
7. onomasticon - a collection or listing of words especially in a specialised field. Here, a collection or listing of proper names of persons or places usually with etymologies.
8. rhyton - a roughly conical container from which fluids were drunk or poured in some ceremony such as libation or merely at table;. A cup, typically formed in the shape of either an animal's head or horn; in the latter case often terminating in the shape of an animal's body.
9. colophon - In manuscripts, a note, usually at the end, left by a scribe, giving information on his exemplar, where and when the copy was made, and sometimes, his own name. In printed material, a printer or publisher's identifying inscription or logo, at the front or end of a book and/or on the spine or dust jacket.
10. autochthonos - of an inhabitant of a place, indigenous rather than descended from migrants or colonists.