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Posted

The more books I've read recently, the more I've seen ANET cited in them. We definitely need this work.

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Posted
3 hours ago, Dr. Nathan Parker said:

The more books I've read recently, the more I've seen ANET cited in them. We definitely need this work.

 

ANET has been repeatedly requested on the forums going back to 2014. So I would hope that Accordance has known this has been a need for a long time.

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Posted

Indeed. One thing we're looking into is this is the first time we've ever potentially done a work with this publisher, so we'll have to see what their Bible software licensing terms are. We're also showing samples to our module developers so they can get an understanding of what the project would be like.

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Posted (edited)
22 hours ago, A.D. Riddle said:

 

ANET and COS have a good amount of overlapping content, but ANET still has many texts not in COS. This page gives a nice comparison (and cross-index) of ANET and COS. Below the table is an extensive list of "Texts appearing in ANET, but not in COS"----there are a significant number of them. (Note: This comparison page has not been updated for COS vol. 4.)

http://web.archive.org/web/20180607143508/http://www.bombaxo.com/cosanet.html

 

A.D.

 

I was already using the list before you posted it for the first time years ago. A quick count reveals there are 219 texts in ANET not included in COS 1-3. But by the same quick count, there are 522 texts in COS 1-3 that are not in ANET. And COS 4 only widens that gap.

 

The question is, why? Because COS thought that their selections were more relevant for the ANE context of Scripture than the ones relating to the OT in ANET.

 

I would say that most HB/OT scholars look to COS first, with its newer scholarship, for example, my first professor, “—Daniel L. Block, Review and Expositor,  … the three volumes in COS will be reliable and frequently used companions of Old Testament scholars in the next fifty years. Biblical commentaries and journal articles will regularly refer to them.” But as scholars, we also use and check ANET at times (I taught ANE Religions at McGill for four years).

 

Newer scholarship also means more footnotes across the board, most often with greater detail. I’ll cite one note in COS from the same passage I cited for Andrew in ANET with reference to "a cool Assyrian inscription in a footnote (ANET, 282.) that references Uzziah/Azariah":

 

“The identification of this individual is uncertain. Three proposals have been made. Two of these proposals were based on a supposed join to ITP Ann 19* (= ICC 65), namely K 6205 — a fragmentary tablet that contains an account of a war against the land of Yaudi and a certain individual called [… i]a-a-u KUR Ia-u-da-a-a. Thus some scholars have proposed that Azriyau was the king of Yʾdy/Samʾal, the southeastern Anatolian state (e.g. Winckler 1893). This view, however, is the least likely since Yʾdy/Samʾal was always rendered KUR/URU Samʾal(la) in Assyrian records, whereas Yaudu/i exclusively refers to Judah. Others suggested that Azriyau was Azariah, the powerful king of Judah (Tadmor 1961b; see also Roberts 1985). The third proposal was put forth by Naʾaman (1974). He argued convincingly that K 6205 should be joined to another fragment and that both of these derive from the reign of Sennacherib (see the Azekah inscription, COS 2.119D below). This meant that the Azriyau of Tiglath-pileser’s annals no longer was attributed to a particular country. Thus Naʾaman (1995b:276–277) argued that this Azriyau was an otherwise unattested king of Hatarikka (biblical Hadrach), a Syrian state neighboring Hamath, and postulated an alternative reconstruction of the events of 739 and especially 738, the year in which Tiglath-pileser annexed Unqi, Hatarikka and the “19 districts of Hamath” (Ann 19*.9–10). See also Weippert 1976–80; Hawkins 1976–80b:273). Until new evidence is discovered, any interpretation of the Azriyau episode must remain conjectural. For further discussion, see Tadmor 1994:273–276; and PNA 1:240” (COS 2.117A).

 

So besides what the editor (Hallo in his preface and introduction), publisher, and reviewers have said or implied, since it is newer scholarship by the “leading talents in the field,” COS is meant to be a successor and replacement for most people, most of the time, and has generally become so.

Edited by Michel Gilbert
changed quick counts
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Posted (edited)
17 hours ago, Dr. Nathan Parker said:

We definitely need this work.

Nathan, I know you created a list when you first joined the accordance team, seeing the ever increasing number of threads on module requests, what is the decision making process of how it is decided which modules to procure, how many projected sales you need and then where they go in the list for development ? Do existing publishers have priority over new ones or in the case of OUP are there publishers you are trying to build better relations with or try and stay clear of?

 

thanks

Edited by ukfraser
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Posted
9 hours ago, Michel Gilbert said:

 

So besides what the editor (Hallo in his preface and introduction), publisher, and reviewers have said or implied, since it is newer scholarship by the “leading talents in the field,” COS is meant to be a successor and replacement for most people, most of the time, and has generally become so.

I think that is largely true but I imagine anyone buying COS would buy ANET or vice-versa - I use my print ANET a lot more than my accordance COS and would really like to have all the linking in and out of ANET in Accordance

 

If you look at Ancient Texts for Hebrew Bible - which Accordance has and I recommend 100% - and imagine that the tagging in that linking to ANET as well as COS you will get a sense of what a boost ANET will bring!

 

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Posted (edited)
3 hours ago, Leopold Green said:

 

If you look at Ancient Texts for Hebrew Bible - which Accordance has and I recommend 100% - and imagine that the tagging in that linking to ANET as well as COS you will get a sense of what a boost ANET will bring!

 

But as Nathan said, the more books he reads, he see ANET referenced so there will need to be all the additional tagging in the other resources that point to ANET as well!

 

a meaty project for the developers!

 

🧐

Edited by ukfraser
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Posted
10 hours ago, ukfraser said:

Nathan, I know you created a list when you first joined the accordance team, seeing the ever increasing number of threads on module requests, what is the decision making process of how it is decided which modules to procure, how many projected sales you need and then where they go in the list for development ? Do existing publishers have priority over new ones or in the case of OUP are there publishers you are trying to build better relations with or try and stay clear of?

 

We use a variety of factors, including how highly requested an item is, a balance of items that would currently be exclusive to us or are in other platforms, works that would offer a scholarly advantage, and how quickly we can get a license from a publisher and get it into development. Some publishers we can work quickly with, others take a little longer. The only publishers we "steer clear of" are the ones listed in my post about submitting module requests, as those publishers aren't licensing to other platforms.

 

As for ANET, it's highly requested and would give us a scholarly advantage. It's a publisher we haven't worked with before, so we're in unchartered waters, but we're at least willing to explore and show them how much we need this work and see what happens!

Posted
16 minutes ago, Dr. Nathan Parker said:

works that would offer a scholarly advantage

 

That is good to hear. It for sure hasn't felt this way for awhile, so this is for sure important.

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Posted
19 hours ago, Michel Gilbert said:

Because COS thought that their selections were more relevant for the ANE context of Scripture than the ones relating to the OT in ANET.

I would say that most HB/OT scholars look to COS first, with its newer scholarship…

Until vol. 4, COS did not have the Ramesses III "Sea Peoples" inscription, but it is in ANET. COS excerpted sections of Enuma Elish, leaving out the ascendancy of Marduk at the end, but ANET has the entire text. Those are two examples of texts (or portions of texts) relevant to OT, that are/were not in COS.

 

Yes, Kevin's list has been around for a while, probably close to 20 years now? From Kevin's blog:

Quote

One interesting thing is the number of texts that are peculiar to each work. In ANET there are 221 titles that are not found in COS. In COS there are 525 titles that are not found in ANET. Some of those titles include multiple texts in either work. For instance, COS includes only Tablet XI of Gilgamesh, while ANET includes all the various texts known at time of publication. There are numerous historical writings found in ANET which are not found in COS. So, while the number of titles peculiar to COS is larger, it’s not precisely explicative of the quality of texts peculiar to either work. Both have their strengths. But I am still much more impressed by the wealth of material selected for ANET, even if the translations are older.

http://web.archive.org/web/20090707090847/http://www.bombaxo.com/blog/?p=1462

 

Yes, COS is the first place I look, but it's still hard for me to say it replaces ANET.

 

A.D.

 

** There is at least one typo in Kevin's list: He says (1) that Kilamuwa of Y ’dy-Sam’al is in ANET but not in COS, but also (2) that it is in both COS and ANET. The latter is the case.

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Posted (edited)

@A.D. Riddle

 

Thanks, I thought I was using the list in the mid to late 2000s but I couldn’t remember for sure. And thanks for the correction. I haven’t checked the list, I just used it when needed after I bought COS around 2007.

 

I’m not sure everyone knows (I’m sure you do) that the first edition of ANET came out in 1950, which means many of the translations are from the 1940s. I don’t have the original edition, but back in the day we were all assigned Pritchard’s anthologies (The Ancient Near East: An Anthology of Texts and Pictures, I, II). I’ve read quite a bit of the anthologies and ANET, and the translations hardly changed from the original edition, e.g., compare the Baal Cycle in the first volume of the anthology, from 1958, which I assume follows the 1950 and 55 editions of ANET, with the third edition from 1969. I haven’t noticed any changes. So, that Baal cycle in the third, 1969 edition, was translated in the 40s for the 1950 edition (based on my experience with publishing, translated and submitted by 1949), so it is at least 74 years old. The same goes for the other texts in the anthologies.

 

Ginsburg said about his translation, “Because so many letters, words, lines, columns, and probably some whole tablets are missing, not all of the tablets can be declared, with certainty, to be parts of the great epic of Baal and arranged in their proper order within it” (ANET, 129). This is word for word in the 1958 anthology also. This is the problem with 55-75 year old scholarship, and I can’t help but believe that the great polymaths who translated ANET would not approve of a newer edition of their texts based on advances in the field. COS constantly discusses these issues, so one of the scholarly advantages that Accordance could offer with ANET is to cross reference it with COS, something Logos hasn’t done. (I would even do this, for a fee, but I severely doubt that would happen; maybe someone would do it for free, hint, hint 🙂.)

 

Another thing that some might not know, but I know you do, is that we are not limited to ANET or COS. If you want to read the entire Enuma Elish, I think/hope you and I both would be reading from Dalley’s Myths from Mesopotamia or something similar.

 

Why I keep harping on this (which will end with this post) is that it is dangerous to rely solely on the old scholarship in ANET. Typically, a student sees a note from ANET and thinks it must be so, when in fact ANET might not even be putting the pieces of the puzzle in correct order, and so might not even translating in order, and sometimes might not even be translating the same text. Never mind new archaeological, cultural, and lexical discoveries as the field has exploded since ANET came out.

 

ANET was great. Hallo has nothing but praise for it in its historical context. It still has its uses, mostly for academics and scholars for various reasons. I can say that I’ve rarely used any of the texts in ANET that aren’t included in COS, but if I was an Assyriologist, etc., I might have used more of them. Since ANET is an older, venerated work, almost everyone cited it until the 2000s. And there are other reasons it is still cited in various works, which I won’t get into.  

 

I’ve already said that I don’t think that COS replaces ANET entirely. But for most people most of the time, it can and does, and newer scholarship always eventually replaces older. My loved ones, family and close friends, aren’t allowed to read ANET by itself, as if it’s the Bible of the ANE. 🙂 I think one of the greatest advantages Accordance could offer is to cross-reference ANET with COS, using the list as a help. Then I would buy both in Accordance even though I already owned/own them in paper and L.

 

 

Edited by Michel Gilbert
typos and changed a word
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Posted
1 hour ago, Michel Gilbert said:

 

 

I’m not sure everyone knows (I’m sure you do) that the first edition of ANET came out in 1950, which means many of the translations are from the 1940s. I don’t have the original edition, but back in the day we were all assigned Pritchard’s anthologies (The Ancient Near East: An Anthology of Texts and Pictures, I, II). I’ve read quite a bit of the anthologies and ANET, and the translations hardly changed from the original edition, e.g., compare the Baal Cycle in the first volume of the anthology, from 1958, which I assume follows the 1950 and 55 editions of ANET, with the third edition from 1969. I haven’t noticed any changes. So, that Baal cycle in the third, 1969 edition, was translated in the 40s for the 1950 edition (based on my experience with publishing, translated and submitted by 1949), so it is at least 74 years old. The same goes for the other texts in the anthologies.

 

 

 

I have the 1969 edition (printed 1992) and it says that this third edition has been reviewed/updated. It has taken a long time to get Accordance to the point where they might actually do this so describing ANET as being 74 years old/from the 1940s is unlikely to help get ANET into Accordance especially as it isn't accurate. I think anyone buying COS in Accordance (which I have) is likely to have fairly specialised interest in the cultures surrounding the Hebrew Bible and therefore may very well want both ANET and COS; particularly because there is a lot of materials in Accordance that reference ANET and could they be tagged/linked that would greatly expand what Accordance offers

IMG_2983.jpg

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Posted (edited)

Okay, so hopefully this will be my last post on the subject.

 

ANET added new material in 1955 and 1969; that’s why I gave a 55-75 year range. There were also corrections and a few added notes, but as expected from such capable scholars they amounted to hardly anything.

 

You don't have to worry. I don’t think anything I say will influence Accordance under the new ownership and direction. Accordance talks of scholarly advantage, but when they hear from a scholar (not just from me) about what advantages they could offer, their suggestions are rarely followed up on, including requests for basic features and standard works.

 

I agree that it would be useful to link to ANET. But scholars are always going to look at COS and/or other works right away to see the latest. If scholars use ANET with caution, then buyers should also use it that way. ANET linked with COS is a good place to start, and for most people most of the time will be the end too.

 

And ANET isn't always inaccurate. It's much more complicated than that. An actual parallel module or interlinear of ANET and COS would help readers to easily spot the differences, but what a complicated project that would turn out to be. But what a scholarly advantage too!

 

 

Edited by Michel Gilbert
added a word
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Posted
On 9/10/2024 at 12:26 PM, Michel Gilbert said:

An actual parallel module or interlinear of ANET and COS would help readers to easily spot the differences, but what a complicated project that would turn out to be. But what a scholarly advantage too!

 

I love the idea, @Michel Gilbert!

 

What if (D.V.) after publication of ANET, Acc. ed., we got a $150 database a la the MT-LXX parallel database?? That would be sick.

Accordance people, see how many cool windows ANET would open up?? You could have

  1. A high-demand product (ANET)
  2. An exclusive product (ANET-COS parallel database)
  3. More sales for existing products (esp. Ancient Texts for the Study of the Hebrew BibleJBL/other journals; etc.)
  4. Major scholarly advantage
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Posted
13 minutes ago, Andrew Patterson said:

An exclusive product (ANET-COS parallel database)

 

Now this would be fun.

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Posted

If Accordance offers the ANET, then its companion volume Ancient Near East in Pictures Relating to the Old Testament is essential.

Having ANET, Ancient Near East in Pictures Relating to the Old Testament, and the Dictionary of the Ancient Near East would be outstanding.

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Posted
On 9/15/2024 at 3:03 PM, Andrew Patterson said:

 

I love the idea, @Michel Gilbert!

 

What if (D.V.) after publication of ANET, Acc. ed., we got a $150 database a la the MT-LXX parallel database?? That would be sick.

Accordance people, see how many cool windows ANET would open up?? You could have

  1. A high-demand product (ANET)
  2. An exclusive product (ANET-COS parallel database)
  3. More sales for existing products (esp. Ancient Texts for the Study of the Hebrew BibleJBL/other journals; etc.)
  4. Major scholarly advantage

This is a fantastic idea!

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  • 3 months later...
Posted

I'm going to try reaching out to the publisher of ANET and see if I can at least get the discussion going, then bring in my manager to discuss it further.

 

If someone knows of a good contact at the publisher, I can reach out. Otherwise, I will try to self-locate a contact.

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