Puzzling Out the Past ─ Studies in Northwest Semitic Languages and Literatures in Honor of Bruce Zuckerman

Bruce Zuckerman shared his extraordinarily persistent and fruitful deciphering work in a 1987 exhibition in Los Angeles titled "Puzzling Out the Past: Making Sense of Ancient Inscriptions from Biblical Times." Each element of the exhibition was presented as a game and showed viewers how to read inscriptions. The catalog from that exhibition is included in this festschrift, along with contributed articles, many of which were written by scholars involved in that exhibition. The volume is slightly oversize (9x12") and is elegantly produced on coated stock, with a section of color plates appended. The three editors are affiliated as follows: Marilyn J. Lundberg (West Semitic research, Fuller Theological Seminary); Steven Fine (Jewish history, Yeshiva U.); and Wayne T. Pitard (Hebrew Bible, U. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign). Annotation c2012 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Marilyn J. Lundberg (Claremont Graduate University, 1995) is Associate Director of West Semitic Research and Adjunct Associate Professor at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California. She is co-editor of The Dead Sea Scrolls Catalogue published by Scholars Press in 1994.Steven Fine, Professor of Jewish History at Yeshiva University, is a cultural historian, specializing in Jewish history in the Greco-Roman period. With an MA in Art History/Museum Studies from USC, Fine was founding curator of the USC Archaeology Research Center (1983–1987).Wayne T. Pitard (Harvard, 1982), is Professor of Hebrew Bible at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Director of the Spurlock Museum. He is co-author, with Mark S. Smith, of The Ugaritic Baal Cycle, Volume II (2009).