Studies in the Cult of Yahweh, Volume 1 Studies in Historical Method, Ancient Israel, Ancient Judaism Book

These two volumes collect some of the most influential and important scholarly essays by the late Morton Smith (1915-1991), for many years Professor of Ancient History at Columbia University in New York City. Smith was admired and feared for his extraordinary ability to look at familiar texts in unfamiliar ways, to re-open old questions, to pose new questions, and to demolish received truths. He practiced the "hermeneutics of suspicion" to devastating effect. His answers are not always convincing but his questions cannot be ignored.
The essays of Volume I center on the Hebrew Bible ("Old Testament"), Ancient Israel and Ancient Judaism, of Volume II on the Christian Bible ("New Testament"), Early Christianity and Ancient Magic. Volume II also contains an assessment of Smith's scholarly achievement and a complete list of his publications.

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Smith (ancient history, Columbia U.) planned such a collection in 1972, but got caught up in other commitments and did not accomplish it before his death in 1991. The two volumes include about half of the papers he selected plus some written after 1972. Among the 20 topics in the first volume are Helios in Palestine, the shape of God and the humanity of gentiles, Palestinian Judaism in the first century, east Mediterranean law codes of the early iron age, the present state of Old Testament studies (1969), and the common theology of the ancient near east. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.