Alan Millard - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Alan Millard

Research paper thumbnail of Recently Discovered Hebrew Inscriptions

Tyndale Bulletin, 1962

THE EARLY HEBREW texts known before 1950 have been collected and discussed in the works of Diring... more THE EARLY HEBREW texts known before 1950 have been collected and discussed in the works of Diringer and Moscati. 1 Since the publication of Moscati's corpus a number of inscriptions have come to light as the result of excavation and of chance discovery. Although there are few which contain more than half a dozen words, they have some significance for Old Testament studies. It may therefore be useful to make a brief survey of them in con junction with those already known. All the ones we shall consider date from the last century of the kingdom of Israel and the ensuing years of the state of Judah. There have been press reports of earlier texts from Arad, near : Masada, but no details have yet been announced,2 Before turning to the early Hebrew texts, we should notice a group of three bronze arrowheads found near Bethlehem. They have the owner's name engraved upon them in early 'phoenician' letters: bf 'bdlb't, 'arrowhead of 'Abd-leba'at'. The type of arrow head and the form of the characters point to a date in the twelfth century n.c. 3 These, then, are examples of Canaanite writing from the time of the Judges, from the days when Gideon made a boy at Succoth write out a list of the elders of the city for him (Jdg. viii.14). The finest specimens of Hebrew writing are naturally those which may be supposed to have emanated from the royal chancelleries in Jerusalem and Samaria. The text from the Siloam tunnel is rightly the most renowned of these and its script clearly shows the trans ference of the cursive hand to stone. The wealthy Judaeans who could afford the construction of tombs in the rock of the Siloam valley may well have used the skills of the royal scribes in the com position and engraving of their epitaphs. Remains of three of these have been found. Two are merely fragments. 4 The third has been

Research paper thumbnail of The Biblical World; A Dictionary of Biblical Archaeology. Edited by Charles F. Pfeiffer. Consulting Editors E. Leslie Carson, Claude F. A. Schaeff, J. A. Thompson. (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1966. 612 pp., numerous illustrations. $8.95.)

Evangelical Quarterly: An International Review of Bible and Theology

Research paper thumbnail of Sennacherib’s Attack on Hezekiah

Research paper thumbnail of Syria-Palestine

Research paper thumbnail of The Lion Concise Bible Encyclopedia

Research paper thumbnail of Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land. Edited by Michael Avi-Yonah. Volumes I, A-D; II, E-Je. (Oxford University Press, London; Prentice-Hall Inc., Englewood Cliffs, N.J. 1975. 647 pp. £8.75, £9.00.)

Evangelical Quarterly: An International Review of Bible and Theology

Research paper thumbnail of Babylonian literary texts

Research paper thumbnail of A Letter from the Ruler of Gezer

Palestine Exploration Quarterly, 1965

Research paper thumbnail of The Persian Names in Esther and the Reliability of the Hebrew Text

Journal of Biblical Literature, 1977

I N his recent Anchor Bible volume on Esther, C. A. Moore has taken up the question of the person... more I N his recent Anchor Bible volume on Esther, C. A. Moore has taken up the question of the personal names, purportedly Persian, occurring in the book. He concluded "most of the personal names are probably Iranian in origin," but their original forms might not be easily discovered since "Successful analysis of personal names presupposes. .. their reasonably accurate transmission" and we must "have reservations about the Hebrew consonantal text of Esther" on the basis of divergencies in the versions.! 1. The Evidence of the Versions Moore has supplied a chart to display each name as given in MT, LXX, a manuscript influenced by the Hexapla (MS 93), the "Lucianic"text, Josephus, the Old Latin, and the Vulgate. Three examples, amended from Moore, demonstrate its variety:

Research paper thumbnail of How reliable is Exodus?

The Biblical Archaeology Review, 2000

Recent attacks on the historicity of the Exodus raise the question of whether or not a text prepa... more Recent attacks on the historicity of the Exodus raise the question of whether or not a text prepared long after the event is likely to be historically accurate. For it is undoubtedly true that the text of Exodus was prepared centuries after the events it describes. The Exodus would have occured, in archaeological terms, in the Late Bronze Age (13th century B.C.). According to the Biblical chronology, the Exodus occured before the establishment of the Israelite monarchy in about 1000 B.C. The existing Exodus text, however, was hardly prepared before that time. In considering the accuracy of the Biblical account, we must treat the story in its context, as a product of the ancient Near East. The preservation of records over many generations is a standard feature of those societies. There are many examples of texts that claim to relate to times long past. here I will explore only one such case.

Research paper thumbnail of Isaiah 40:20, Towards a Solution

Tyndale Bulletin, 1964

Based on the nonlinear disturbance observer (NDO), the inversion time-constraint stability strate... more Based on the nonlinear disturbance observer (NDO), the inversion time-constraint stability strategy (ITCS) is designed to make the deep-sea self-holding intelligent buoy (DSIB) system hovered at an appointed depth within a specified time limit. However, it is very challenging to determine the optimal parameters of an ITCS depth controller. Firstly, a genetic algorithm based on quantum theory (QGA) is proposed to obtain the optimal parameter combination by using the individual expression form of quantum bit and the adjustment strategy of quantum rotary gate. To improve the speed and accuracy of global search in the QGA optimization process, taking the number of odd and even evolutions as the best combination point of the genetic and chaos particle swarm algorithm (GACPSO), an ITCS depth controller based on GACPSO strategy is proposed. Besides, the simulations and hardware-in-the-loop system experiments are conducted to examine the effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed QGA-ITCS and GACPSO-ITCS depth controller. The results show that the proposed GACPSO-ITCS depth controller provides higher stability with smaller steady-state error and less settling time in the depth-control process. The research of the proposed method can provide a stable operation condition for the marine sensors carried by the DSIB.

Research paper thumbnail of A New Babylonian ‘Genesis’ Story

Research paper thumbnail of Notes: Isaiah 53:2

Research paper thumbnail of Abraham (Person)

The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary, 1992

Research paper thumbnail of Edom and Moab

Research paper thumbnail of Aramaean

Research paper thumbnail of Aramaic ritual texts from Persepolis. By Raymond A. Bowman. (University of Chicago Oriental Institute Publications, XCI.) pp. xiii, 194, 36 pl. Chicago, University Press, 1970. £11.25

Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland, 1973

Research paper thumbnail of An Observation on 'Keilschrifttexte aus Jerusalem

Quelques notes concernant les textes cuneiformes mesopotamiens qui forment la collection du monas... more Quelques notes concernant les textes cuneiformes mesopotamiens qui forment la collection du monastere dominicain de Saint Etienne, a Jerusalem.

Research paper thumbnail of Urušaḫuppa

Research paper thumbnail of The Etymology of Eden

Vetus Testamentum, 1984

... Semitic and ultimately Sumerian word. 2. Eden a West Semitic word Biblical Hebrew knows sever... more ... Semitic and ultimately Sumerian word. 2. Eden a West Semitic word Biblical Hebrew knows several words with Cdn as their base and the common idea of "pleasure, luxury". Traditionally, Eden is 104 Page 3. SHORT NOTES ...

Research paper thumbnail of Recently Discovered Hebrew Inscriptions

Tyndale Bulletin, 1962

THE EARLY HEBREW texts known before 1950 have been collected and discussed in the works of Diring... more THE EARLY HEBREW texts known before 1950 have been collected and discussed in the works of Diringer and Moscati. 1 Since the publication of Moscati's corpus a number of inscriptions have come to light as the result of excavation and of chance discovery. Although there are few which contain more than half a dozen words, they have some significance for Old Testament studies. It may therefore be useful to make a brief survey of them in con junction with those already known. All the ones we shall consider date from the last century of the kingdom of Israel and the ensuing years of the state of Judah. There have been press reports of earlier texts from Arad, near : Masada, but no details have yet been announced,2 Before turning to the early Hebrew texts, we should notice a group of three bronze arrowheads found near Bethlehem. They have the owner's name engraved upon them in early 'phoenician' letters: bf 'bdlb't, 'arrowhead of 'Abd-leba'at'. The type of arrow head and the form of the characters point to a date in the twelfth century n.c. 3 These, then, are examples of Canaanite writing from the time of the Judges, from the days when Gideon made a boy at Succoth write out a list of the elders of the city for him (Jdg. viii.14). The finest specimens of Hebrew writing are naturally those which may be supposed to have emanated from the royal chancelleries in Jerusalem and Samaria. The text from the Siloam tunnel is rightly the most renowned of these and its script clearly shows the trans ference of the cursive hand to stone. The wealthy Judaeans who could afford the construction of tombs in the rock of the Siloam valley may well have used the skills of the royal scribes in the com position and engraving of their epitaphs. Remains of three of these have been found. Two are merely fragments. 4 The third has been

Research paper thumbnail of The Biblical World; A Dictionary of Biblical Archaeology. Edited by Charles F. Pfeiffer. Consulting Editors E. Leslie Carson, Claude F. A. Schaeff, J. A. Thompson. (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1966. 612 pp., numerous illustrations. $8.95.)

Evangelical Quarterly: An International Review of Bible and Theology

Research paper thumbnail of Sennacherib’s Attack on Hezekiah

Research paper thumbnail of Syria-Palestine

Research paper thumbnail of The Lion Concise Bible Encyclopedia

Research paper thumbnail of Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land. Edited by Michael Avi-Yonah. Volumes I, A-D; II, E-Je. (Oxford University Press, London; Prentice-Hall Inc., Englewood Cliffs, N.J. 1975. 647 pp. £8.75, £9.00.)

Evangelical Quarterly: An International Review of Bible and Theology

Research paper thumbnail of Babylonian literary texts

Research paper thumbnail of A Letter from the Ruler of Gezer

Palestine Exploration Quarterly, 1965

Research paper thumbnail of The Persian Names in Esther and the Reliability of the Hebrew Text

Journal of Biblical Literature, 1977

I N his recent Anchor Bible volume on Esther, C. A. Moore has taken up the question of the person... more I N his recent Anchor Bible volume on Esther, C. A. Moore has taken up the question of the personal names, purportedly Persian, occurring in the book. He concluded "most of the personal names are probably Iranian in origin," but their original forms might not be easily discovered since "Successful analysis of personal names presupposes. .. their reasonably accurate transmission" and we must "have reservations about the Hebrew consonantal text of Esther" on the basis of divergencies in the versions.! 1. The Evidence of the Versions Moore has supplied a chart to display each name as given in MT, LXX, a manuscript influenced by the Hexapla (MS 93), the "Lucianic"text, Josephus, the Old Latin, and the Vulgate. Three examples, amended from Moore, demonstrate its variety:

Research paper thumbnail of How reliable is Exodus?

The Biblical Archaeology Review, 2000

Recent attacks on the historicity of the Exodus raise the question of whether or not a text prepa... more Recent attacks on the historicity of the Exodus raise the question of whether or not a text prepared long after the event is likely to be historically accurate. For it is undoubtedly true that the text of Exodus was prepared centuries after the events it describes. The Exodus would have occured, in archaeological terms, in the Late Bronze Age (13th century B.C.). According to the Biblical chronology, the Exodus occured before the establishment of the Israelite monarchy in about 1000 B.C. The existing Exodus text, however, was hardly prepared before that time. In considering the accuracy of the Biblical account, we must treat the story in its context, as a product of the ancient Near East. The preservation of records over many generations is a standard feature of those societies. There are many examples of texts that claim to relate to times long past. here I will explore only one such case.

Research paper thumbnail of Isaiah 40:20, Towards a Solution

Tyndale Bulletin, 1964

Based on the nonlinear disturbance observer (NDO), the inversion time-constraint stability strate... more Based on the nonlinear disturbance observer (NDO), the inversion time-constraint stability strategy (ITCS) is designed to make the deep-sea self-holding intelligent buoy (DSIB) system hovered at an appointed depth within a specified time limit. However, it is very challenging to determine the optimal parameters of an ITCS depth controller. Firstly, a genetic algorithm based on quantum theory (QGA) is proposed to obtain the optimal parameter combination by using the individual expression form of quantum bit and the adjustment strategy of quantum rotary gate. To improve the speed and accuracy of global search in the QGA optimization process, taking the number of odd and even evolutions as the best combination point of the genetic and chaos particle swarm algorithm (GACPSO), an ITCS depth controller based on GACPSO strategy is proposed. Besides, the simulations and hardware-in-the-loop system experiments are conducted to examine the effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed QGA-ITCS and GACPSO-ITCS depth controller. The results show that the proposed GACPSO-ITCS depth controller provides higher stability with smaller steady-state error and less settling time in the depth-control process. The research of the proposed method can provide a stable operation condition for the marine sensors carried by the DSIB.

Research paper thumbnail of A New Babylonian ‘Genesis’ Story

Research paper thumbnail of Notes: Isaiah 53:2

Research paper thumbnail of Abraham (Person)

The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary, 1992

Research paper thumbnail of Edom and Moab

Research paper thumbnail of Aramaean

Research paper thumbnail of Aramaic ritual texts from Persepolis. By Raymond A. Bowman. (University of Chicago Oriental Institute Publications, XCI.) pp. xiii, 194, 36 pl. Chicago, University Press, 1970. £11.25

Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland, 1973

Research paper thumbnail of An Observation on 'Keilschrifttexte aus Jerusalem

Quelques notes concernant les textes cuneiformes mesopotamiens qui forment la collection du monas... more Quelques notes concernant les textes cuneiformes mesopotamiens qui forment la collection du monastere dominicain de Saint Etienne, a Jerusalem.

Research paper thumbnail of Urušaḫuppa

Research paper thumbnail of The Etymology of Eden

Vetus Testamentum, 1984

... Semitic and ultimately Sumerian word. 2. Eden a West Semitic word Biblical Hebrew knows sever... more ... Semitic and ultimately Sumerian word. 2. Eden a West Semitic word Biblical Hebrew knows several words with Cdn as their base and the common idea of "pleasure, luxury". Traditionally, Eden is 104 Page 3. SHORT NOTES ...

Research paper thumbnail of Nicholas Postgate (ed.):  Languages of Iraq: Ancient and Modern

Year: 2007 Format: pp. viii, 187. 32 b/w maps and illustrations. Size 240 x 160mm ISBN: 978-0- 9... more Year: 2007
Format: pp. viii, 187. 32 b/w maps and illustrations. Size 240 x 160mm
ISBN: 978-0- 903472-21-0
Price: £15
Link to puchase: http://www.oxbowbooks.com/oxbow/studies-in-the-ancient-history-of-northern-iraq.html

Authors and editors:

Nicholas Postgate (editor), Introduction
Jeremy Black(†), Sumerian
Andrew George, Babylonian and Assyrian: A history of Akkadian
David Hawkins, Hurrian
Alan Millard, Early Aramaic
Geoffrey Khan, Aramaic in the medieval and modern periods
Eleanor Coghill, Fieldwork in Neo-Aramaic
Clive Holes, Colloquial Iraqi Arabic
Christine Allison, Kurdish in Iraq
Christiane Bulut, Iraqi Turkman

For all five thousand years of its history Iraq has been home to a mixture of languages, spoken and written, and the same is true today. In November 2003, to celebrate the country's rich diversity and long history as a centre of civilisation, BISl presented a series of talks by experts on each of the major languages of Iraq and their history, and this illustrated volume brings these now to a wider public.

Iraq's languages come from different linguistic families - Semitic, Indo-European, and agglutinative languages like Sumerian, Hurrian and Turkish. Some, although long dead, have a prime place in the history of the Old World: Sumerian, probably the first language to be written and the vehicle of cuneiform scholarship for more than two millennia, and Akkadian, the language of Hammurapi and the Epic of Gilgamesh, and used across the Near East for administration and diplomacy. The history of Aramaic is even longer, stretching back to overlap with Akkadian before 1000 BC. It survives, precariously, in both written and spoken forms, being one of four languages spoken in Iraq today. Of these Arabic as a major world language has often been described, but here we have an account of the vernacular Iraqi Arabic dialects, and the descriptions of Iraqi Kurdish and Turkman are unique, detailed and authoritative.

Printed by Cambridge University Press.