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1701 North State Street Jackson, MS 39210-0001 (800)352-1050 (601)974-1000
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The Summers Lectures, presented annually, are endowed by a gift from the Reverend Lemuel C. Summers and by the Reiff-Lewis Endowment Fund.
Jack M. Sasson
"Time and History in Ancient Israel"
11 a.m.-1:45 p.m., Friday, October 8, 2010, Academic Complex, Room 215
Sasson will discuss his fascinating life growing up in Syria, and how biblical Israel differed from its neighbors not so much in the notions of an almighty god, worship, and kingship as in the organization of time - inventing a seven-day unit to implicate its god in the construction of a strange institution it called the Sabbath - and in shaping a history that is closed rather than open, with sharply drawn beginnings and (eventually) sharply shaped ends.
Jack M. Sasson is the Mary Jane Werthan Professor of Judaic and Biblical Studies and one of the leading scholars of Ancient Near Eastern History in the world. Born in Aleppo, Syria, and a U.S. citizen since 1961, Sasson received his B.A. from Brooklyn College in 1962 and his M.S. and Ph.D. from Brandeis University, where he pursued Ancient Near Eastern History as well as Islamic studies. Sasson retired from the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill) as its William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Religious Studies in 1991. He is past president of the American Oriental Society (1996) and the Society of Biblical Literature (southeast branch, 1986). He has belonged to the editorial board of numerous journals and series including the Biblical Archaeologist, Mesopotamian Studies, Mari: Annales de recherches interdisciplinaires, Shofar, and Estudios de Asia y Africa and reference tools such as The Anchor Bible Dictionary. He is the author of numerous books and articles and was the editor-in-chief of Scribner's awards-winning Civilizations of the Ancient Near East, a four-volume reference set that appeared in 1995. He was recently as a visiting professor at the Sorbonne and a distinguished scholar at Ben-Gurion and Brigham Young universities.
Schedule of Events
All events will be at Millsaps College, Academic Complex, Room 215
For more information, please contact Dr. James E. Bowley at james.bowley@millsaps.edu or 601-974-1328. Summers Lecture is sponsored by the Millsaps College Department of Religious Studies.
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