Between Reddit and Facebook, I have been asked numerous times what sorts of textbooks I recommend concerning Ancient Near Eastern religions / cultures. Because I’m tired of rewriting these recommendations over and over again, and because I’m tired of trawling through my comment history so I don’t have to rewrite so much from total scratch — all while not giving the fullest recommendations I would like to — I have finally created a page on my blog to make both my life and your life somewhat easier in this regard.
The “recommended reading” section only contains textbooks, and I have striven (though, admittedly, I have not completely succeeded) to keep my recommendations limited to textbooks which are more or less realistically acquirable via most online purveyors. Listing articles would have made these lists virtually impossible for novices to navigate, in addition to many articles and the journals in which they are published overwhelmingly not being available to non-students and non-scholars.
The recommendations I have given are divided into four subsets, which for now I am relegating to the same page: Interdisciplinary, Egyptian, Levantine, and Mesopotamian. The latter three are rather self-explanatory, while the first subset contains texts which are relevant to at least two specializations within (and sometimes outside) Ancient Near Eastern Studies. Interdisciplinary works aren’t to be treated independently of the others; rather, they are texts which illustrate “the bigger picture.” Most of those listed are (hopefully) quite self-evident to the reader by their titles.
Understandably, it is and shall remain a perpetual work-in-progress. The lists will never be “complete,” but they are at least comprehensive.
