Modern critical scholarship has concluded that the books of the Hebrew Bible have not reached us in their original form but are the products of lengthy evolution. Many of these books are thought to combine the works of more than one author or age and to have undergone considerable revision.

Tigay and the other contributors use comparisons of various texts from ancient Mesopotamia and post-exilic Israel. Such comparisons show that the sort of development of biblical literature that nineteenth-century critics were led to postulate from close study of the texts alone is characteristic of many ancient Near Eastern texts.

'Empirical Models for Biblical Criticism' is of value to scholars interested in the Old Testament, as well as religion, theology, Jewish studies, Near Eastern studies, and comparative literature.

Editor - Jeffrey H. Tigay
Foreword - Richard Elliott Friedman

"It is sometimes said that little new is offered in source criticism and many studies seem exercises in reductions toward absurdity. This collection is a clear exception. It examines ancient Mesopotamian, biblical, and postbiblical texts that have come down in several versions of different dates, as analogues for what source criticism proposes were the processes of development leading to formation of segments of the Hebrew Bible as well as the criteria employed to reconstruct this process and its stages. . . . This is a substantial contribution to a discussion much in need of one.”
—'Religious Studies Review'

"[This book] is undoubtedly a useful contribution to biblical criticism. It provides new insights into the growth of the tradition and a stimulus to further studies along these lines.”
—'The Expository Times'

Toward the Image of Tammuz and Other Essays on Mesopotamian History and Culture by Thorkild Jacobsen
Introduction to the Massoretico-Critical Edition of the Hebrew Bible, 2 Volumes by Christian D. Ginsburg
Empirical Models for Biblical Criticism
Studies in the Book of the Covenant in the Light of Cuneiform and Biblical Law by Shalom Paul
The Rabbinic Traditions About the Pharisees Before 70, 3 Volumes by Jacob Neusner
The Rabbinic Traditions About the Pharisees Before 70, Part III by Jacob Neusner
The Rabbinic Traditions About the Pharisees Before 70, Part I by Jacob Neusner
The Last Mycenaeans and Their Successors by V. R. d'A. Desborough
The Rabbinic Traditions About the Pharisees Before 70, Part II by Jacob Neusner