Böcker av Ada Yardeni

Since the early 1990s, about two thousand Idumean Aramaic ostraca have found their way onto the antiquities market and are now scattered across a number of museums, libraries, and private collections. This fifth and final volume of the Textbook of Aramaic Ostraca from Idumea completes the work of bringing these ostraca together in a single publication. Volumes 1‿4 published some 1,600 ostraca that gave us insight into agriculture, economics, politics, onomastics, and scribal practices from fourth/third-century BCE Idumea and Judah. The ostraca in volume 5 come from the same milieu, but the information they provide is entirely new and different. This volume presents 485 ostraca, including 99 land descriptions, 168 uncertain texts, and 218 assorted remains, scribal exercises, and forgeries, along with useful indexes and tables and a comparative list of entries. The land descriptions‿which record local landmarks, ownership boundaries, and land registration‿provide rich complementary material to the rest of the Idumean ostraca. The “uncertain textsâ€? are fragmentary, in poor condition, or contain other abnormalities. As the TAO corpus becomes better understood and as imaging techniques improve, these texts will help to fill gaps in knowledge. The final section includes the remains of scribal practices and forgeries, important because they help to show the authenticity of the other two thousand pieces. A unique collection of documentary sources for fourth/third-century BCE Idumea‿and, by extension, Judah‿this multivolume work will be a powerful resource for those interested in onomastics and social and economic history.

The Dead Sea Scrolls constitute the most important documentary evidence for the "Jewish alphabet," which was used to write ancient Hebrew and Aramaic. In Understanding the Alphabet of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Dr. Ada Yardeni, one of the world's leading authorities on ancient Semitic languages, paleography, and epigraphy, provides a thorough overview of the script and its variations, and traces its development from the late 3rd to the early 2nd century BCE. This helpful introduction also includes a reasoned proposal for applying scribal progression and characteristics to the dating of the Dead Sea Scroll fragments. Understanding the Alphabet of the Dead Sea Scrolls is an excellent resource for students, professors, or anyone who is interested in this fascinating chapter in the history of Hebrew paleography.From the Foreword by Weston W. Fields, Executive Director of The Dead Sea Scrolls Foundation: "The book excels in so many ways. all of which will appeal to professional and lay readers alike.This book sets a new standard in the field of ancient Hebrew and Aramaic paleography."