From Mari to Jerusalem and Back: Assyriological and Biblical Studies in Honor of Jack Murad Sasson.

• Author: Miglio, Adam E.

From Mari to Jerusalem and Back: Assyriological and Biblical Studies in Honor of Jack Murad Sasson. Edited by ANNALISA AZZONI, ALEXANDRA KLEINERMAN, DOUGLAS A. KNIGHT, and DAVID I. OWEN. University Park, PA: ElSENBRAUNS, 2020. Pp. xxviii + 508, illus. $99.95.

The book under review is a celebration of Jack Murad Sasson and his extraordinary academic career. It is a melange of insightful and important studies in Assyriology and in the Hebrew Bible that celebrate a scholar whose expertise has significantly contributed to both disciplines. The thirty-one high-quality essays in the volume will make it an essential collection for scholars and students working in these fields.

Rather than survey the volume's contents, I will instead note a few essays that stood out to me. For example, three tablets from Mari are presented for the first time in this volume. Mari has been a recurrent focus in Sasson's career, and the three tablets published in this volume are, therefore, fitting contributions. The first is a missive (A.697) presented by J.-M. Durand. This letter provides a dramatic, firsthand account of the traditional, family-based justice that could characterize society along the banks of the Euphrates. In it, we learn about an abductor whom the authorities had apprehended only after he had (likely) sold off his kidnapped victim. This criminal was all set to be sent to the king, despite his brother's insistence that he would pay a penalty for the crime he had committed. Yet the letter goes on to indicate that the criminal had since taken flight, leaving his family as the guarantors (ana qatatim nadanum). Thereafter, this saga takes what seems like a cruel twist: The abductor's brother was readied to be sent to the king instead, where he would receive the outcome of this capital case. We do not know the outcome of the case, but if the verdict was influenced by Idin-Annu, the official who had supervised the entire affair and dispatched the letter to the king, it was likely punitive. Idin-Annu concluded with an appeal to the king that stops just short of an outright request to enforce strict legal liability against the abductor's family: "Let my lord do what he sees fit! If that man is not seized by fear, then bandits/the lawless (sarrum) pressure the district." This letter provides a dramatic case study of the way family-based justice could be woven into the political and social systems that integrated populations along the banks of the Euphrates.

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