Wilfred Watson – författare

The Septuagint, the first translation — or as Fernández Marcos points out, a “collection of translations”— of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek figures prominently in both the history of Second Temple Judaism and early Christianity. In this second, revised edition of the successful Spanish translation, Natalio Fernández Marcos introduces readers to the origin of the Septuagint in its earliest versions (Aquila, Theodotian, and Symmachus) and traces the fundamental issues associated with Septuagint studies. Published with financial support from the Dirección General del Libro, Archivos y Bibliothecas del Ministerio de Educación y Cultura, Spain. The Septuagint in Context is also available in hardback (ISBN 90 04 11574 9)

Over the past seven decades, the scores of publications on Ugarit in Northern Syria (15th to 11th centuries BCE) are so scattered that a good overall view of the subject is virtually impossible. Wilfred Watson and Nicolas Wyatt, the editors of the present Handbook in the series Handbook of Oriental Studies, have brought together and made accessible this accumulated knowledge on the archives from Ugarit, called 'the foremost literary discovery of the twentieth century' by Cyrus Gordon.In 16 chapters a careful selection of specialists in the field deal with all important aspects of Ugarit, such as the discovery and decipherment of a previously unknown script (alphabetic cuneiform) used to write both the local language (Ugaritic) and Hurrian and its grammar, vocabulary and style; documents in other languages (including Akkadian and Hittite), as well as the literature and letters, culture, economy, social life, religion, history and iconography of the ancient kingdom of Ugarit. A chapter on computer analysis of these documents concludes the work. This first such wide-ranging survey, which includes recent scholarship, an extensive up-to-date bibliography, illustrations and maps, will be of particular use to those studying the history, religion, cultures and languages of the ancient Near East, and also of the Bible and to all those interested in the background to Greek and Phoenician cultures.