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An Ancient History

Courtesy of the Hultink Family Foundation, the Cántaro Institute is now the new home for the Reformational Digital Library (formerly known as the Reformational Publishing Project). All rights reserved.

Document: Ronald L. Roper, An Ancient History (USA: University of Minnesota, 1983).

Excerpt: The following “unsolicited” review of three volumes of a series on ancient history (from c.1500 B.C. to c.300 B.C.) by a single author, is neither an authorized single book review, nor a comparison of three journal articles on the same subject by different authors. It does, however, cover the times of the Sea Raiders, the Saites, the Neo-Babylonians and the Persians; the second two volumes appeared in print about five years ago. This is, in part, a compulsive review. In the fall of 1979, while taking a required class on “Old Testament History” at a theological seminary in St. Louis (having enrolled in a new M.A. program in Exegetical Theology primarily to concentrate on languages, and having moved from California with that determination) I was drawn into the first volume of this series. I had special-ordered it back in my college days (about 1968) but promptly buried it in my library. So I finally decided to capitalize on the dusty tome, only to find myself playing off the author’s position against that of my professor, who was a seasoned and very able scholar of the Old Testament and its surrounding history, and who retired that year.

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An Ancient History Review – R.L. Roper.pdf