I couldn't resist posting this -- hat tip to Matthew for it! "Record-Setting Sale Of An Ancient Assyrian Stone Relief Sparks Looting Fears In Iraq" $28 million for a seven-foot carved relief of an apkallu. Readers will recall that apkallu are either depicted with...
Assyria
Book on Artistic Depiction of Mesopotamian Deities Available Online in PDF
Tallay Ornan's important book, The triumph of the symbol: Pictorial representation of deities in Mesopotamia and the biblical image ban, is now available as a PDF for free download. Here's the abstract: This book analyzes the history of Mesopotamian imagery from the...
Naked Bible Podcast Episode 137: Ezekiel 23
Ezekiel 23 essentially takes up where Ezekiel 16 left off. The latter chapter is perhaps the most sexual explicit in the entire Bible, as its theme is to present Jerusalem and Judah as a whore to telegraph her spiritual betrayal of Yahweh. In this chapter both the...
An Assyrian Origin for the Trinity?
Some readers may be aware of claims in this regard popularized on the internet. The idea is actually fairly old, but in recent years has gained steam via the work of a credentialed Assyriologist, Simo Parpola. A few years ago I had the role of soliciting papers for an...
After 90 Years the CAD is "Finished" (Chicago Assyrian Dictionary)
Here's the link to the recent announcement. I say "finished" because, having been begun in 1921, many volumes are now outdated. But it's still a great achievement. The CAD is available for free in PDF (or you can buy all the volumes for $1400). I mention the CAD on...