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34 of 36 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
It is really all you have if you don't know Akkadian, November 23, 2000
This review is from: The Amarna Letters (Hardcover)
Not being able to read Akkadian at the time that I write this article, Moran is really all I have. It is just about the only book that I know of that has enough of the Amarna tablets (all of the 'letters') to be a handy reference for an armchair-scholar like myself to begin to answer the many fascinating problems and questions surrounding these texts. I have discussed the Amarna letters via this translation with a number of respected Old Testament and Ancient Near East scholars who, though knowing Hebrew, Aramaic, etc., are not adept enough with Akkadian to seriously study the cuneiform. Among those people, Moran is considered the final authority, though we are fully aware of the great many criticisms that our Assyriologist brethren (who read the Akkadian fluently) have of Moran's methods of translation. If you don't read Akkadian then you will have to share this book with a number of Hebrew and Near East scholars who also have to trust it. But be warned, those who read Akkadian do not have much good to say about it. I would not be suprized if another such translation appears in the near future. To Moran's credit, I am well-familiar with the egos in academia and this book's detractors may well be denouncing Moran's work in order to make a name for themselves or get their own books and articles published. Academia, much like Hollywood, is founded on fame and good repute. Over all, the book has given me access to the Amarna letters and for that I am thankful, but I have heard enough sceptical talk about the book to make me keep my eye out for another translation. Concerning content, the book is well organized and has excellent indexes for looking up biblical names of people, cities, tribes, Middle Eastern gods, etc. There is a fairly extensive article at the beginning which tries to date the tablets and talk about the character of their language. Except for the criticisms of the translation, the book is very well put together. Lastly, if you haven't gathered as much from my earlier commentary, there is no cuneiform in the book. It is strictly and English translation.
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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Indispensible, if inevitably controversial, October 12, 2000
By A Customer
This review is from: The Amarna Letters (Hardcover)
For decades, the need for a new, more accurate translation of the Amarna letters in their entirety has been keenly felt. Many aspects of their diplomatic Akkadian remain debatable, and any translation will be controversial. The merits and flaws of this one are being debated, and its renderings can of course only be accepted as provisional, especially by those of us who can't read Akkadian. As the reviewer from Berlin noted, Moran may also tend to favor certain theories (no Amenhotep III-Akhenaten coregency; favoring plague rather than nonspecific (and perhaps varied) illnesses and other troubles in all passages where plague is a possible interpretation, etc.), but the footnotes discussing reasons for his decisions in each case are extensive, so on the whole, questionable points do seem to be fairly noted). These translations are of enormous importance, and are sparking reassessments not only of the situation in Asia minor during the Amarna period, but the entire organization of Egyptian foreign policy during the 14th c. BCE (see for instance Cohen and Westbrook, Amarna Diplomacy (Johns Hopkins, 2000). For serious students of the late 18th dynasty, these new translations are indispensible.
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18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Not good for historical purposes, January 29, 2000
By A Customer
This review is from: The Amarna Letters (Hardcover)
This book contains certainly the most recent 'complete' English translations of the corpus of Amarna Letters, however the translations themselves have been challenged several times in the last years for being extremely inaccurate when dealing with the old and much debated problem of the coregency between Amenhotep III and Amenhotep IV. Here the translator of the texts chooses to render certain difficult and problematic passages as if they would appear contrary to a coregency, while exact translations reveal that they are not indeed. So while the book is good in general, it is to be avoided when dealing with historical and, most of all, chronological problems related to the succession of Amenhotep III. See for this the strong comments of F. J. Giles and A. B. Knapp in 'The Amarna Age: Western Asia', vol. 1, 1997.
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