The Annals Of Sennacherib

Sennacharib had evidently long since made up his mind as to the manner in which Babylonian pride was to be handled. He did not take the hand of Marduk as viceroy, but he had himself proclaimed king of Babylon, and and this without using a second name as Tiglath-pileser had done. Nor does he seem to have taken the trouble to honor Marduk by calling on him in his temple. --from Chapter 2 Sennacherib, the great king, the mighty king, king of the universe, king of Assyria, king of the four quarters; the shepherd, favorite of the great gods, guardian of the right, lover of justice; who lends support, who comes to the aid of the needy, who turns to pious deeds; . . . the god Assur, the great mountain, an unrivaled kingship has entrusted to me, and above all those who dwell in palaces, has made powerful my weapons; from the upper sea of the setting sun to the lower sea of the rising sun, all the black-headed race he has brought in submission at my feet and mighty kings feared my warfare. --from the Oriental Institute Prism

Best known today from biblical accounts of his exploits and ignominious end, the Assyrian king Sennacherib (704-681 B.C.) was once the ruler of all western Asia. In his capital at Nineveh, in what is now northern Iraq, he built what he called the "Palace without Rival." Though only scattered traces of this magnificent structure are visible today, contemporary written descriptions and surviving wall reliefs permit a remarkably detailed reconstruction of the appearance and significance of the palace. An art historian trained in ancient Near East philology, archaeology, and history, John Malcolm Russell marshals these resources to investigate the meaning and political function of the palace of Sennacherib. He contends that the meaning of the monument cannot be found in images or texts alone; nor can these be divorced from architectural context. Thus his study combines discussions of the context of inscriptions in Sennacherib's palace with reconstructions of its physical appearance and analyses of the principles by which the subjects of Sennacherib's reliefs were organized to express meaning. Many of the illustrations are published here for the first time, notably drawings of palace reliefs made by nineteenth-century excavators and photographs taken in the course of the author's own excavations at Nineveh.

The birth of the West stems from the rejection of tradition. All our evidence for this influence comes from the Axial period, 800-400 BCE. Baruch Halpern explores the impact of changing cosmologies and social relations on cultural change in that era, especially from Mesopotamia to Israel and Greece, but extending across the Mediterranean, not least to Egypt and Italy. In this volume he shows how an explosion of international commerce and exchange, which can be understood as a Renaissance, led to the redefinition of selfhood in various cultures and to Reformation. The process inevitably precipitated an Enlightenment. This has happened over and over in human history and in academic or cultural fields. It is the basis of modernization, or Westernization, wherever it occurs, and whatever form it takes.

What makes one crime more serious than another, and why? This book investigates the problem of "seriousness of offence" in English law from the comparative perspective of biblical law. Burnside takes a semiotic approach to show how biblical conceptions of seriousness are synthesised and communicated through various descriptive and performative registers. Seven case studies show that biblical law discriminates between the seriousness of different offences and between the relative seriousness of the same offence when committed by different people or when performed in different ways. Recurring elements include location and the offender's social statue. The closing chapter considers some of the implications for the current debate about crime and punishment.

This study offers a reconstruction of Sennacherib’s campaign against Judah and Jerusalem in 701 BC. It contrasts and compares various, partly contradictious readings of this event and challenges established narratives. By giving equal weight to a great variety of different sources, whether literary or archaeological, the author comes to a new and profound understanding of this complex military conflict.

A critical resource for students and scholars of the ancient Near East and the Bible Josette Elayi’s Sennacherib, King of Assyria is the only biography of Sargon II’s famous son. Elayi traces the reign of Sennacherib in context in order to illuminate more fully the life and contributions of this warlord, builder, innovator, and social reformer—a unique figure among the Assyrian kings. Elayi offers both an evaluation of this royal figure and an assessment of the Assyrian Empire by interpreting the historical information surrounding the decisive events of his reign. Features: Exploration of why Sennacherib did not seize Jerusalem or remove Hezekiah from the throne An extensive investigation of annals, royal inscriptions, letters, palace reliefs, clay tablets, and excavation reports Maps and tables