Tuesday, January 13, 2015

Jack Sasson retires

VANDERBILT NEWS: Listen: Renowned scholar of Hebrew Bible and ancient Near East retires from teaching.
Although Sasson, the founding director of Vanderbilt’s Program in Jewish Studies, has taught his last class, he will continue his scholarship in Assyriology and Hebrew Bible. Last May, Yale University Press published Sasson’s Judges: 1-12, A New Translation, with Introduction and Commentary. “That book ended up only covering the first 12 chapters of Judges because I had so much material,” Sasson said. “Now I need to start with Samson and focus on chapters 13-21.

Sasson has just now completed a volume that translates and annotates more than 700 letters and administrative documents from the clay tablets found at the Middle-Euphrates town of Mari. Information gleaned from the tablets provides an informed perspective on life in Mesopotamia in 18th century B.C.E.
Best wishes to Jack for a long, happy, and productive retirement. And if we thought the Agade List was active before, well, just wait ...

More on Jack Sasson here and links.