This ebook contains the text approved by the external and internal PhD examiners for a thesis carried out under the supervision of Dr John Bimson at Trinity College, Bristol, England. It will be of interest to those who wish to explore cross-cultural connections between early Israel and New Kingdom Egypt, as expressed in triumphal literature. The thesis looks at issues to do with the creation of poetry in each of those cultures, and the links between them, as well as investigating when appropriate cross-cultural contacts might have happened to forge common links between them. From the abstract:This study aims to show that the Israel Stele of Merenptah and the Song of the Sea in Exodus 15 share sufficient common compositional principles and poetic devices as to support a similar dating for the two works. Indeed, the specific combinations of large-scale principles and small-scale devices are shown to be unique within their respective cultures. These claims are supported by analysis of a wide spectrum of both Egyptian and Hebrew triumphal material, together with insights drawn from wider studies in poetics and culture. Some original insights into Egyptian principles of poetic composition are suggested, together with the corresponding cross-cultural implications for Israelite poetry. The later textual history of incorporation of the original poetic work into its current narrative context is also considered.

Inconsistency in the Torah

Conflict and commitment in the shadow of a city’s downfall The raiding ships have come before, but this time it is different. This time the attackers are coming to stay, and defensive walls will not hold them back. Nowhere is safe. One by one, the great kings and their vassal cities collapse as the newcomers advance. The land is already a patchwork of many different peoples, bound together in a fragile web of traditional alliances and rivalries. How will political and personal promises change with the arrival of the new clans? Is war inevitable, or can a different answer be found? Walk with refugees, migrants, and defenders of the land alike, as they struggle to create a different way of life beside the ruins of the old. Can alliance, commitment and love survive the turmoil?

What journey would you make to encounter the meaning of a dream? Makty-Rasut is a scribe in New Kingdom Egypt, fashioning tombs for the elite. He lives a comfortable but restless life, moving every few years further upstream along the river Nile. He is content to exercise his talent without examining his origins. Then a series of vivid dreams, interpreted with the help of a senior priest, disrupts this pattern. To solve the riddle, he must go on a journey that will take him outside the Beloved Land and away from the life that he knows. His travels take him into the neighbouring province of Canaan, to a hill-country village called Kephrath, and to a way of life he has never considered.

This short story takes place about 150 years before the start of the full length novel In a Milk and Honeyed Land. The setting of Kephrath itself in the Canaanite hill country will be familiar from the novel, but of course none of the characters overlap. A small glossary at the end will help readers who are not familiar with the novel to orient themselves in this world. Belita-Labiy found it difficult to concentrate, though, with the news rippling around the hill country. So far the raids had not been too close, but from all that she had heard, these groups of men were swift to move, and swift to strike, wherever they pleased. Who could say which town they might visit next?So she knew that her dancing, while apparently as fluent and potent as ever, lacked the whole-hearted commitment that she preferred. It could not be helped, but the distraction nagged at her. So all the while that she danced like Taliy in the earliest garden, and later as her body thrilled and her voice cried out in lovemaking, part of her soul was anxiously flitting around the uplands, trying to guess what would happen next.

Set about ten years after the conclusion of the full-length novel In a Milk and Honeyed Land, this short story follows Damariel and Nepheret, seers and priests of the town of Kephrath, as they tackle a new challenge to the four towns. A group of migrants has set up an encampment just down the trackway towards Shalem. What are their intentions? Do they come in peace or war? “They are more of a threat to themselves just now. But two things might happen. One is that men might join, and stay, who have some weapons and some real aggression. Then they might start to intrude on surrounding towns including this Kephrath. Or, and maybe more likely, they could bring a plague of sickness into the area. These are not men who know how to live outside, not for the most part. A few have been slaves, but most of them are workers who have always been told what to do. They are used to living in houses. The main thing that protects Kephrath is that they do not know how to act in concert as a group. They are just like a rough heap of gravel. But perhaps someone could turn them into a rock and start to pound others around them.”

This is one of a series of character interviews from The Flame Before Us. This interview is with Labayu, a Kinahny man who grew up in Kephrath, but until recently was living among the northern tribes of the Ibriym, in the Galil region. He has recently moved back to Giybon, largest of the Four Towns. If you like the interview and extract, The Flame Before Us is available as a full-length novel. The Flame Before Us: Conflict and commitment in the shadow of a city's downfall The raiding ships have come before, but this time it is different. This time the attackers are coming to stay. The great kings and their vassals collapse as the newcomers advance. Walk with refugees, migrants, and defenders of the land alike, as they struggle to create a different way of life beside the ruins of the old. Can alliance, commitment and love survive the turmoil?

This book explores the significance of Julius Caesar to differentperiods, societies and people from the 50s BC through to thetwenty-first century. This interdisciplinary volume explores the significance ofJulius Caesar to different periods, societies and people. Ranges over the fields of religious, military, and politicalhistory, archaeology, architecture and urban planning, the visualarts, and literary, film, theatre and cultural studies. Examines representations of Caesar in Italy, France, Germany,Britain, and the United States in particular. Objects of analysis range from Caesar’s own commentarieson the Gallic wars, through Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, andimages of Caesar in Italian fascist popular culture, tocontemporary cinema and current debates about Americanempire. Edited by a leading expert on the reception of ancientRome. Includes original contributions by international experts onCaesar and his reception.

Covering the time span from the Paleolithic period to the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 B.C., the eminent Egyptologist Donald Redford explores three thousand years of uninterrupted contact between Egypt and Western Asia across the Sinai land-bridge. In the vivid and lucid style that we expect from the author of the popular Akhenaten, Redford presents a sweeping narrative of the love-hate relationship between the peoples of ancient Israel/Palestine and Egypt.