From Epic to Canon: History and Literature in Ancient Israel - Paperback

by Frank Moore Cross (Author)

Winner of the Centennial Book Award from the Tuttleman Family Foundation of Gratz College

In From Epic to Canon, Frank Moore Cross discusses specific issues that illuminate central questions about the Hebrew Bible and those who created and preserved it. He challenges the persistent attempt to read Protestant theological polemic against law into ancient Israel. Cross uncovers the continuities between the institutions of kinship and of covenant, which he describes as "extended kinship." He examines the social structures of ancient Israel and reveals that beneath its later social and cultural accretions, the concept of covenant--as opposed to codified law--was a vital part of Israel's earliest institutions. He then draws parallels between the expression of kinship and covenant among the Israelites and that practiced by other ancient societies, as well as in primitive societies.

Author Biography

Frank Moore Cross is the Hancock Professor of Hebrew and Other Oriental Languages (Emeritus) in the Department of Near Eastern Languages at Harvard University. His many books include The Ancient Library of Qumran and Modern Biblical Studies, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic, and, as editor, the Hermeneia series of Old Testament commentaries and Qumran and the History of Biblical Text. In addition, he has received several honorary degrees and prizes, including the William Foxwell Albright Award in Biblical Scholarship, the Israel Museum's Percia Schimmel Prize in Archaeology, and the Medalla de Honor of the University of Madrid.