Even Briefer

Ugarit in Retrospect: 50 Years of Ugarit and Ugaritic

Gordon D. Young, editor (Eisenbrauns: Indiana, 1981) 238 pp., $12.50

In 1979, a diverse group of scholars met for a symposium at the University of Wisconsin to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Ras Shamra-Ugarit excavations. Out of that symposium grew this collection of 13 essays, answering the great scholarly and public interest in Ugaritic studies.

With the exception of two essays in French, by Pierre Bordreuil and Jean Margueron, the text is in English and covers the disparate specialities of the symposium members. Illustrative topics are “Ugarit and the Bible,” by P. C. Craigie (see “The Tablets from Ugarit and Their Importance for Biblical Studies”), “Ugarit, Canaan and Egypt: Some New Epigraphic Evidence from Tel Aphek in Israel,” by David Owen, “The Cult of the Dead at Ugarit,” by Marvin Pope and “Ugarit in Retrospect and Prospect,” by Cyrus Gordon.

Ugarit and the Old Testament