David the king, when studied against the backdrop of existing material cultural remains from the ancient Middle East, scarcely seems to have been there. Excavations in Jerusalem have turned up nothing concrete about his existence. The literature concerning him is fraught with problems and generally takes on a legendary-mythological character. Even the meaning of his name is unclear. If he is mentioned at all by his contemporary monarchs against whom he would have fought it is only obliquely or only intimated by omissions or partial spellings in context. This volume attempts to advance scholarship addressing these concerns.

Job finds himself in a situation similar to one experienced by everyone at some point in his or her life. He wants answers to questions concerning what has happened to him, since he lived his life according to the traditional wisdom and rules of conduct, asking what has gone wrong and why. The Book of Job raises fundamental questions of both the actions and expectations of humans and deities, and asks whether a clear understanding can be reached between them. The contributing essays to this anthology help advance and sharpen both the questions and the responses to that question.

Melilah is an interdisciplinary peer-reviewed journal concerned with Jewish law, history, literature, religion, culture and thought in the ancient, medieval and modern eras. Contributors (2008) include Tobias Green, David Lincicum, Daniel R. Langton, Dan Garner, and Giula F. Miller.

In this volume, a reprint of his 1966 monograph, H. J. W. Drijvers investigates the life and teachings of Bardaisan of Edessa, determining his place in the religious and cultural life of Edessa in the second half of the second century of the common era.

The fame of the martyr St. Phokas, first bishop of Sinope (on the Black Sea) and patron of seafarers, had spread to many parts of the Christian world by the fifth and sixth centuries. Although the Acts of his martyrdom under Trajan were composed in Greek, the earliest witness to them is the Syriac translation which is edited and translated here from two early manuscripts.

Nomocanons (manuals of law) in Eastern Christianity give insights into the whole civil and religious life of communities, families and individuals. Nomocanonical literature is particularly abundant in the Coptic tradition, and the Rev. Franz Joseph Cöln describes five Nomocanons of the Coptic Church with a short account of their contents.

This volume is a good quality reprint of the 1887 edition of Alfred von Gutschmid's classic text. It will be of interest to scholars in the Syriac-speaking kingdom of Osroene (or Edessa).

This article examines Ancient North Arabian inscriptions and their various epigraphic types found in the region of Taymā'.

This article presents, in provisional form, a recently discovered and excavated Nabataean sanctuary devoted to the cult of the sun-god in Madâ’in Sâlih, ancient Hegra.

This article examines a letter composed by an Ugaritian administrator stationed in Cyprus.