Asimov Online - asimovonline.com 

"Religion in Asimov's Writings" - Short article by Michael Brummond.

Writings

Asimov's Guide to the Bible: The Old and New Testaments (1981, pdf) - holybooks.com - Archive

"Nightfall" (1941) - uni.edu - Archive - Highly acclaimed short story by Isaac Asimov.

"The Relativity of Wrong" - hermiene.net - This essay shows some of Asimov's wit and perhaps the strength of his thoughts. To sum up, with scientific knowledge the question is not whether it is right or wrong, but how wrong is it, and is it good enough for the purposes it is being used? The sciences aren't about truth but truth-likeness. In a word, Verisimilitude.

"The Last Question" (1956) - Archive/multivax.com - Humanity to god and back again. 

The Complete Robot (1982) by Isaac Asimov - las.illinois.edu - Collection of short stories about robots and robotics.

Jenkins’ Spoiler-Laden Guide to Isaac Asimov - asimovreviews.net - Reviews of nearly all Asimov's books and short stories, by a Christian no less.

Judaism

Will your grandchildren be Jews? - simpletoremember.com - Population projections for American Jews.

Jewish Concepts: The Seven Noachide Laws - jewishvirtuallibrary.com - Seven laws derived from Adam and Noah that apply to all of humanity.

1. Do Not Deny God

2. Do Not Blaspheme God

3. Do Not Murder

4. Do Not Engage in Incestuous, Adulterous, or Homosexual Relationships.

5. Do Not Steal

6. Do Not Eat of a Live Animal

7. Establish Courts/Legal System to Ensure Law Obedience

Zionism

There Never Will Be a Palestinian State. So What’s Next? (2025) By Elliott Abrams - ideas.tikvah.org 

Why the Accusation of Settler Colonialism Is So Hollow (Feb. 5, 2025) by Philologos - MosaicMagazine.com 

Ecstasy and Amnesia in the Gaza Strip. (Nov. 6, 2023) by Shany Mor - mosaicmagazine.com - A compelling thesis that brings into focus the impossible relationship of the Palestinians with Israel. 

The Failed Concepts That Brought Israel to October 7 (Oct. 7, 2024) by Shany Mor - mosaicmagazine.com - A look at the evils within and without. Responses: Evelyn Gordon, Rafi DeMogge, Gadi Taub, Cole S. Aronson and Avi Bell, and Amnon Lord. Final response: The Policies of October 6 Kept Israel Safe—Until They Didn’t

What Is “the Jews”? (2023) by Joshua Abramson Cohen - bostonreview.net  - Review of Daniel Boyarin's book The No-State Solution: A Jewish Manifesto. "Daniel Boyarin makes the seemingly paradoxical proposal that in order to end Zionism, Jewishness should be defined as nationhood."

Territorialism

Freeland League - heldring.com 

Michael C. Astour: A Biographical Essay by James J. Weingartner - siue.edu  PDF - Michael Astour was a highly influential and respected Near East historian with an interesting and often tumultuous life prior to his academic years. 

Anti-semitism

I’ve Stopped Caring If Harvard Protesters Are Antisemitic. They Might Be Worse. (4/30/2025) by Jacob T. Miller - thecrimson.com 

also related Harvard Can’t Fight Dirty if Its Hands Aren’t Clean (3/27/2025) 

Why Dostoevsky Loved Humanity and Hated the Jews (2023) by Gary Saul Morson - mosaicmagazine.com - An essay uncovering the stereotypes and prejudices of the literary giant.

WHAT WE BELIEVE ABOUT ISRAEL - centerforisrael.com - A healthy position statement relating "Gentile" Christians to Jews and Messianic Jews. References:

• Gentiles and Jews in Christ - Ephesians 2

• Romans 9:3-5 - For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my people, those of my own race, the people of Israel. Theirs is the adoption to sonship; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises. Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of the Messiah, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen.

• Romans 11:23-29 - As far as the gospel is concerned, they are enemies for your sake; but as far as election is concerned, they are loved on account of the patriarchs, for God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable.

• 1 Corinthians 7:17-20 - Nevertheless, each person should live as a believer in whatever situation the Lord has assigned to them, just as God has called them. This is the rule I lay down in all the churches. Was a man already circumcised when he was called? He should not become uncircumcised. Was a man uncircumcised when he was called? He should not be circumcised. Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing. Keeping God’s commands is what counts. Each person should remain in the situation they were in when God called them.

• Paul as Jew and directions for gentiles - Acts 21:17-26 

Banning Israeli Food Truck in Philadelphia Jun 23, 2021 by Dr. Yvette Alt Miller - aish.com - Modern anti-Semitic act with a discussion of the difference between the new anti-Semitism and legitimate criticism of Israel.

Gaza War

The Best Israel Conversation You've Ever Heard (2025) by Major Andrew Fox and Triggernometry - youtube.com 

Hamas Efforts, Assisted By UNRWA, To Seize Control Of Humanitarian Aid Entering Gaza Strip (2024) - memri.org - How UNWRA and Hamas collaborate on aid distribution. Why doesn't UN security guard UNWRA aid distribution? Hamas needs to control the aid to stay in power, and UNWRA is happily complicit in the survival of Hamas.

Israel Implemented More Measures to Prevent Civilian Casualties Than Any Other Nation in History | Opinion (2024) by John Spencer - newsweek.com 

Hamas’s Human Shield Strategy in Gaza (2025) by Andrew Fox and Salo Aizenberg - henryjacksonsociety.org  PDF - "Since 7 October 2023, the UN has issued 367 reports that are filed under the subject of “Gaza Strip”. A search of these reports reveals that the UN has rarely acknowledged and never asserted the use by Hamas of “human shields”. The phenomenon of “human shields” has only been mentioned four times, in each case in only a single sentence, as either an “allegation”, an Israeli “claim” or an unverified “report” that this practice occurred. The UN has never dedicated a single paragraph, let alone an entire report, to analysing how Hamas has fought the war in Gaza."

Hamas Casualty Reports are a Tangle of Technical Problems (April 2025) by Professors Lewi Stone and Gregory Rose - henryjacksonsociety.org  PDF - "The two Hamas casualty data offices, the MoH and the GMO, generated different narratives that regularly contradicted each other, as we show. In effect, they allowed Hamas to convey very different versions of the war, as needed. The GMO painted a lurid picture of indiscriminate killing of women and children by Israel, supposedly supported by the MoH but often inconsistent with its datasets."

Questionable Counting: Analysing the Death Toll from the Hamas-Run Ministry of Health in Gaza (December 2024) by Andrew Fox - henryjacksonsociety.org  PDF - "This report raises serious concerns that the Gaza MoH figures have been overstated. The data behind their figures contains natural deaths, deaths from before this conflict began and deaths of those killed by Hamas itself; it contains no mention of Hamas combatant fatalities; and it overstates the number of women and children killed."

Gaza Demographics and UNRWA - ChatGPT 7/28/2025 PDF

ChatGPT Coming to Terms with True Gazan Starvation = 147 - 7/29/2025 PDF

Media Bias - from the original fry, Perplexity AI, 8/10/2025 PDF 

Refried Gazan Starvation - Perplexity AI 8/13/2025 PDF

Shany Mor

While we are at it, Shany Mor is a breath of fresh, crisp moderation in this increasingly divisive and polarized world. Finally, someone who can eloquently and consistently demonstrate thinking beyond the bumper sticker. Collected here are some links and essays:

• The Golan Heights and the Depths of Hypocrisy (2019) - tabletmag.com - The ‘norms’ invoked to challenge Israel’s claims to the Golan are selectively applied, totally contradictory, and would actually invalidate Palestinian territorial claims. Other than that, they make perfect sense.

• Peter Beinart’s Grotesque Utopia: The false prophecy of “equality” and “one state” amounts to little more than taking the name of Yavneh in vain (2020) - medium.com 

• The Return of the Peace Processors (2021) - mosaicmagazine.com 

  • Response: Stuck on the Wrong Road to Peace (2021) - Final response to two responders - Michael Doran and Michael Koplow.

• Maybe Shocked, But Not Surprised (Oct. 16, 2023) - medium.com 

• Ecstasy and Amnesia in the Gaza Strip. (Nov. 6, 2023) by Shany Mor - mosaicmagazine.com  Print. - A compelling thesis that brings into focus the impossible relationship of the Palestinians with Israel.

• A Special Dictionary for Israel (2024) - mosaicmagazine.com  Print. 

• The Failed Concepts That Brought Israel to October 7 (Oct. 7, 2024) by Shany Mor - mosaicmagazine.com - A look at the evils within and without. 

Ancient DNA Is Rewriting Human (and Neanderthal) History - theatlantic.com - 2018 interview giving the new basics. 9000 ya, farmers replaced hunter-gatherers in Europe. 5000 ya people from the steppe above the Caspian Sea move into Europe and replace much of the earlier population.

What ancient DNA says about us - newhumanist.org.uk - Reich said, “I expect that no intellectually elegant and emotionally satisfying molecular explanation for behavioural modernity will ever be found." - author: "...he is saying that the famous search for “the gene that made us human” is futile."

War

How the War in Ukraine Might End (2022) by Keith Gessen - newyorker.com 

Religion

Monotheism of the Ancient Hebrews: Evolved, Invented, Stolen or Revealed? - jewsforjesus.org 

Monotheism - jewishvirtuallibrary.org - Explores the idea of monotheism and how it uniquely differs from both polytheism and pantheism.

"Religious Evolution" by Robert N. Bellah - hartfordinstitute.com - American Sociological Review, Vol. 29, No. 3 (Jun., 1964), pp. 358-374

"The Evolution of Religion" by Charles Mathewes - the-american-interest.com

"Hunter-Gatherers and the Origins of Religion" by Peoples, Duda, & Marlowe - ncbi.nlm.nih.gov - A study inferring back to the religious characteristics of hunter-gatherers finding that, "the trait “high gods” stands apart, suggesting that belief in a single creator deity can emerge in a society regardless of other aspects of its religion."

Forms of God, Forming God: A Typology of Divine Anthropomorphism in the Pentateuch (2011) - academia.edu - Knafl, Katherine. Inadequacy of Immanent and Transcendent categories, pgs. 22-23: 

All four sources (and H), reflect a belief that God can locate either in heaven or on earth and none are concerned with the philosophical problem that to assert divine presence in one locale is to imply divine absence from another (if God is on earth, he cannot be in heaven) or that God is “wholly other” and therefore has nothing in common with earthly existence. 

The Homeland: In the footprints of Early Europeans - homeland.ku.dk - Map timeline showing date and location of certain ancient people keyed to certain anthropologically defined groups.

"Out of Arabia" and the Middle-Upper Palaeolithic transition in the southern Levant (2014) By Jeff Rose, Anthony Marks - Academia.edu

Armenia

BETWEEN A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE: MUSASIR, KUMME, UKKU AND SUBRIA – THE BUFFER STATES BETWEEN ASSYRIA AND URARTU by Karen Radner - discovery.ucl.ac.uk (pdf)

The Origins of the Urartians in the Light of the Van/Karagündüz Excavations by Veli Sevin - jstor.org

Ancient human genome-wide data from a 3000-year interval in the Caucasus corresponds with eco-geographic regions - nature.com

Banning, E. (2023). Paradise Found or Common Sense Lost? Göbekli Tepe’s Last Decade as a Pre-Farming Cult Centre. Open Archaeology, 9(1), 20220317. https://doi.org/10.1515/opar-2022-0317 - Makes the argument that Göbekli Tepe is a village early in the hunter-gatherer-to-farming transition in contradiction to first interpretations as a purely ceremonial center. Therefore hunter-gatherer vs. sedentary farming dichotomies are inappropriate as also the fad of the common interpretation of religion. 

Kura-Araxes Culture

Also known as Shengavitian, Karaz, Pulur, Yanik, Early Transcaucasian, and Khirbet Kerak

Paléorient, 2014, vol. 40, n°2. The Kura-Araxes culture from the Caucasus to Iran, Anatolia and the Levant: Between unity and diversity.  - 14 articles on the Kura-Araxes 

Rethinking the Kura-Araxes Genesis (2014) - persee.fr  PDF Antonio Sagona

• "The Chaff-Faced tradition [early 4th mill. BC] reflected the pre-Uruk connections that ran along a north-south axis, extending from Syrian-Anatolian borderlands around the Van basin through the Southern Caucasus all the way to Maikop. This far-flung system was no doubt driven by the search for metals and semi-precious stones to cater to the tastes of the emerging elite." (pg. 40)

• "Turning to the bearers of the Sioni tradition, we find that they had little major effect on societies beyond their heartland in the Southern Caucasus. Theirs was a native tradition concentrated at a small number of sites." (pg 41)

• Chaffed-Faced ware can be found with Sioni ware in various proportions.

• KA I complex "emerged ca 3500/3400 BC sharply and decisively from this cultural milieu, comprising a strong mix of Syro-Mesopotamian influences and local developments." (pg. 42)

The Early Trans-Caucasian Culture in Iran: Perspectives and problems (2014) - persee.fr - Geoffrey D. Summers, Paléorient  Année 2014  40-2  pp. 155-168

• It is unlikely that Godin Tepe is one of the earlier ETC site. Fixing of chronology is very uncertain due to few secure radiocarbon dates.

• 4200 kya event? "Although the answer is no, it is perhaps not completely inconceivable that the break between ETC II and III seen at Yanik Tepe, and postulated at Haftavan Tepe and elsewhere, might be some reflection of this major, widespread, natural event."

• ETC immigration in the Urmia Basin and central Zagros Mtns. is to abandoned or new sites around 3000-2900 BC. The speculation is that ETC migration took place during the "Uruk collapse" and that collapse was related to wider disruption than just Mesopotamia proper.

• One of the open questions is contact with existing populations. There is no evidence of violence, nor is evidence of any associations at all. 

• ETC "did not possess formal developed religion centred around temples and priesthoods, as was the 3rd millennium norm in Mesopotamia and North Syria."

• No destructions ending the ETC have been reported from the Urmia or Van region. It appears sites were deserted.

The spatial organization of craft production at the Kura-Araxes settlement of Köhne Shahar in northwestern Iran: A zooarchaeological approach (2020) - journals.plos.org - Samei S, Alizadeh K (2020) PLoS ONE 15(3): e0229339. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0229339 - Evidences showed an absence of an entrenched social hierarchy:

• No one structure stands out.

• Locally organized workspaces. No evidence of top-down control of the workspace.

• Household appears to be the base unit of production.

• "These economies underwent a major shift in the early third millennium BCE, a period that is contemporaneous with the habitation of KSH IV–V. In this period, the first KA settlements were abandoned and new settlements were founded in formerly unoccupied areas within the southern Caucasus [83,84]. This shift was accompanied by the appearance of a mosaic of local ceramic styles that replaced the more uniform material culture of the earlier KA tradition [83]."

Chapter 9: Explaining the Kura-Araxes (2017) - google.com or Academia.edu - Mitchell S. Rothman in Fitful Histories and Unruly Publics  

• Soviet archeology following the socialist archeology of V. Gordon Childe limited the scope and collection of artifacts due to its preconceived conclusions.

• "Publishing a small sample of typical artifacts was therefore sufficient. Ecofacts such as plant and animal remains were not so important. Certainly, publishing the full details of collections was unnecessary. Some in the Soviet Bloc over-layered this artifactual analysis with a Soviet Marxist viewpoint, ultimately derived from Morgan and the anthropological Progressivists as adopted by Marx and Engels. Change was essentially about the transition from the classless society of tribal peoples to the tributary and then capitalist property-owning classes of the state."

Aratta

Four Sumerian Epics about Aratta (2017) R. Bedrosian, S. Cohen, S. N. Kramer - archive.org - 

The Genomic Formation of South and Central Asia - biorxiv.org -

• • Figure 1 - 

  • Figure 2 - Modeling Results - Showing Anatolian and Iranian farmers mixing in an Iran C Cline that heavily contributes to Steppe EMBA Cline around 3000 BC of which the Yamnaya and Afanasievo are genetic offshoots. The EMBA Cline heavily contributes to the Steppe MLBA Cloud (c. 2300 BC).

  • Figure 4 - A Tale of Two Subcontinents - Simultaneous expansion of Near East agriculture East and West with time contours. This is happening parallel to the East and West expansion of Yamnaya pastoralists.

Hamazi

In Honor of Ernest R. Lacheman on His Seventy-fifth Birthday ..., Volume 2 - books.google.com - Two articles mention Hamazi:

• Astour, Michael Semites and Hurrians in Northern Transtigris: "Hamazi was located not in northern Iran but close enough to the Sumero-Akkadian heartland to be included in the Sumerian King List as the seat of a dynasty, inserted between the Second Dynasty of Kish and the Second Dynasty of Uruk."

Luwians

Who are the Luwians? - luwianstudies.org

Arzawa - wikipedia.org

The Luwian Civilization – The Missing Link in the Aegean Bronze Age - academia.edu, by Eberhard Zangger -

https://pure.mpg.de/rest/items/item_406441/component/file_406440/content 

Hittites

Cities in the Book of Joshua - wikipedia.org - The book of Joshua lists nearly 400 different cities and towns in the areas the tribes of Israel were taking. This table compiles information about them.

Edom

High-precision radiocarbon dating and historical biblical archaeology in southern Jordan (2008) - pnas.org - Chronology establishing Solomon's mines as being active well before and during the time of Solomon in contradiction to minimalist assumptions. Thomas E. Levy et al. PNAS October 28, 2008 105 (43) 16460-16465; https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0804950105

The Iron Age Pottery from Khirbat en-Nahas, Jordan: A Preliminary Study - levlab.ucsd.edu - 

Philistines

Sea Peoples - wikipedia.com - Good summary of names and records for the Sea Peoples.

Ancient DNA sheds light on the genetic origins of early Iron Age Philistines (2019) - advances.sciencemag.org - Philistines sample from Ashkelon likely came from Crete (“Crete_Odigitria_BA”) or Sardinia in the early Iron Age, but mixed with the existing population to the point that the European portion of the Philistine genetic signal was no longer detectable in the later Iron Age population. In comparison, LBA samples matched 60% Levant_ChL and ~40% Iran_ChL as expected. The Iran_ChL admixture is an increase over EBA.

• Iron Age 1 samples mitochondrial DNA: T2c1c, H92, I1, T1a1. Y-DNA: J, R1. 

• Iron Age 2 samples mitochondrial DNA: H2c, H4a1c, JT. Y-DNA: BT, L.

• Discussed at: Indo-european.eu, 

Human settlement and coastal change in Gaza since the Bronze Age (2005) by Christophe Morhange et al. - journals.openedition.org 

Israel

Khirbet Qeiyafa in the Shephelah - academia.edu - Colloquium papers regarding the Khirbet Qeiyafa excavation which has several finds that have challenged minimalist interpretations of archaeology. Khirbet Qeiyafa was an Iron Age IIA fortified borderland city that only existed for about 50 years before destroyed. By location it should be Philistine given that it is only 12 km from Gath - the largest Philistine city of that time - but there are several markers showing that it is not. It could be Judahite or another unprovenanced group. The casemate style wall construction could only be compared to later Judahite or Edomite construction making this the earliest Iron Age attestation of an organized kingdom such as that described in the Bible with Saul and David. A large sherd of pottery with Proto-Canaanite writing may or may not be in Hebrew, but it is in some Hebrew like dialect closely related to Canaanite. Some observations:

• Two model shrines that would house a goddess idol are also much discussed. At least one of these shrines would be for Inanna/Ishtar. Are these shrines the biblical Asherah?

A Finely Resolved Phylogeny of Y Chromosome Hg J Illuminates the Processes of Phoenician and Greek Colonizations in the Mediterranean - Supplemental text From Discussion:

• "First, there is little evidence of sudden diversification between 15 and 5 kya, a period of likely population increase and pressure for range expansion, due to the Agricultural revolution in the Fertile Crescent." - That is, Hg J did not migrate with the farmers very much 9000 years ago.

• "Second, within each subclade, lineages currently sampled in Turkey do not show up as preferentially ancestral." - That is, there is quite a bit of mixing of J within Anatolia. 

• "Of the internal clades, only J1-M267 and J2b-M12 displayed the same growth phase at approximately 5 kya." - Growth and expansion primarily during the Bronze Age.

• "The increase in frequency and radiation of the J1-P58 lineage is evident in the clustering of subjects from Middle East and Western Arabian Peninsula in this clade." - Corresponds exactly to Shem. They regard this as a marker for Phoenicians.

• "The ages of the three lineages [within J2a-L397] (2.0–3.0 kya) are compatible with the beginning of the Greek colonial period, in the 8th century BCE." - Greek branches found in Italy, Cyprus, and Crete.

Genetic origins of the Minoans and Mycenaeans (2017) by Iosif Lazaridis et al. - nature.com - Discussed by indo-european.eu, sciencemag.org -

• "This analysis showed that all Bronze Age populations from the Aegean and Anatolia are consistent with deriving most (approximately 62–86%) of their ancestry from an Anatolian Neolithic-related population (Table 1). However, they also had a component (approximately 9–32%) of ‘eastern’ (Caucasus/Iran-related) ancestry. It was previously shown that this type of ancestry was introduced into mainland Europe via Bronze Age pastoralists from the Eurasian steppe, who were a mix of both eastern European hunter–gatherers and populations from the Caucasus and Iran; our results show that it also arrived on its own, at least in the Minoans, without eastern European hunter–gatherer ancestry. This ancestry need not have arrived from regions east of Anatolia, as it was already present during the Neolithic in central Anatolia…"

Ancient Mesopotamia: This History, Our History - mesopotamia.lib.uchicago.edu - Interactive learning with museum artifacts.

The Oracc Project List - oracc.museum.upenn.edu - ORACC stands for Open Richly Annotated Cuneiform Corpus which are several projects with translating and understanding all the varieties of cuneiform texts: Sumerian, Akkadian, Ugaritic, etc.

Ancient Mesopotamian Beliefs in the Afterlife (2014) by M. Choksi - ancient.eu 

Origins of the Ancient Constellations - harvard.edu 

Ancient Near East Sacred Texts - sacred-texts.com 

Pre-Pottery Neolithic

Pre-Pottery Neolithic - Wikipedia.org - >>

Nomadic Pastorialism

"The Tribe as a Unit of Subsistence: Nomadic Pastoralism in the Middle East" by Emmanuel Marx - American Anthropologist (1977)

Dilmun

The Flood Story, Segment D -  Zi-ud-sura is settled "in an overseas country, in the land Dilmun, where the sun rises." That would be on the East shore of the Persian Gulf - Elam or Marhashi.

Uruk

The Early Transcaucasian phenomenon in structural-systemic perspective: Cuisine, craft and economy (2014) - Understanding Kura-Araxes Culture with relationship to Uruk. 

• The key problem that hampers understanding this relationship is "the deep and unexplained conservatism" in material culture and social organization of the Kura-Araxes. Why did they not assimilate Uruk's culture?

• Maybe it is the other way around. The Uruk culture maybe the outlier. As Joshua Mark notes:

...advances of Mesopotamia’s Early Dynastic Period differed from Egypt’s in significant ways, notably in that Mesopotamia – even under the rule of Sargon or later empires – was never the cohesive ethnic or political entity Egypt was and the kinds of cultural development cited for this era were not as uniform as they were in Egypt. The city-states of Sumer were, for much of their history, each independently governed – not united under the reign of a single king as in the case of Egyptian government – and so a city like Uruk or Ur might have developed some important cultural advance which was not shared – at least not readily – with others.

Eridu

Was Eridu The First City in Sumerian Mythology? by Peeter Espak - academia.edu 

Kish

Zaina, Federico (2020) The Urban Archaeology of early Kish: 3rd Millenium BCE Levels at Tell Ingharra. OrientLab Series Major Vol. 5 https://www.orientlab.net/pubs/ 

Sumer

Physical anthropology and the "Sumerian problem" (2006) by Arkadiusz Soltysiak - antropologia.uw.edu.pl

The Sumerians: Their History, Culture, and Character (1963) by Samuel Noah Kramer - oi.uchicago.edu - A readable introduction to Sumerian culture and texts by one of the leading Sumerian translators, with many comparatives to biblical topics pointed out. 

• Hebrew Shem = Sumer, pgs. 297-299 

Sumerian Triad

Ancient Near Eastern gods Enki and Ea: diachronical analysis of texts and images from the earliest sources to the Neo-Sumerian period (2006) by Peeter Espak - dspace.ut.ee (pdf) - Source page - Technical but readable Masters dissertation, 157 pages.

• (28) ki(g) in Enki could be understood as "favour," "benevolence" or "love". Several Enki and West Semitic El equivalences and parallels.

• (31- ) Ea etymology if Sumerian is literally "House of Water." Probably Semitic origin from the proto Semitic root *hyy "to live" used to describe spring fed or running water.

• (38) "Sumerian Enki and Semitic Ea can not be seen as denoting a divine concept from a certain exclusive area or linguistic group. Rather they are concepts in continuous development and change and the main core of their nature is represented in some way or another in every religion of wider Near East and bordering regions."

• (66) "A bilingual lexical list from Ebla mentions Enki after Enlil. Enki is translated as hayyu(m)."

• (73) Me is symbolically associated with trees. "trees, orchards; the me-s of Ea." In the greater context it appears the goddess of writing Nisaba has stacked written tablets upon each other so that they symbolically represent trees of written divine command - the me-s of Ea.

Babylonia

SHINAR. (1906) By: Emil G. Hirsch, George A. Barton - jewishencyclopedia.com - 

Literature

Sources of Early Akkadian Literature (SEAL) - seal.huji.ac.il - A Text Corpus of Babylonian and Assyrian Literary Texts from the 3rd and 2nd Millennia BCE. 

• Atrahasis Flood Tablets

• Gilgamesh XI Flood with Ūta-napištī

Ishtar and Izdubar (1884) by Leonidas Le Cenci Hamilton - sacred-texts.com - Early translation of the Izdubar/Gligamesh epic with embellishments and reconstructions before further texts were found.

The Chaldean Account of Genesis (1876) by George Smith - sacred-texts.com also amazon.com - Account of the Izdubar/Gilgamesh epic from the main person responsible for finding it.

The Sargon Geography from Mesopotamian Cosmic Geography By Wayne Horowitz, pgs. 67-95 - books.google.com - Huge relation of place names including Edom and Moab. Believed to have been compiled from older sources in the first millennium BC.

Assyria

Map of the Assyrian Empire - jewishvirtuallibrary.org - Useful map of max extents with vassals and viceroys.

https://oi.uchicago.edu/sites/oi.uchicago.edu/files/uploads/shared/docs/ancient_records_assyria1.pdf - 

https://oi.uchicago.edu/sites/oi.uchicago.edu/files/uploads/shared/docs/ancient_records_assyria2.pdf - 

Babylon

Babylonian Topographical Texts online (BTTo) - oracc.museum.upenn.edu/btto/ 

UNESCO: Babylon - 

• Maps and Plans (pdf) - whc.unesco.org

Recent finds from the northern Mesopotamian city of Tell Brak (2007) Geoff Emberling & Helen McDonald 

Pedersén, O. (2011). Excavated and Unexcavated Libraries in Babylon. In E. Cancik-Kirschbaum, M. Ess & J. Marzahn (Ed.), Babylon: Wissenskultur in Orient und Okzident (pp. 47-68). Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110222128.47 

Kassites

‘KASSITES’ by Ran Zadok in Encyclopaedia Iranica Online - referenceworks.brillonline.com - Realistic summary of what is known about the origin of the Kassites. 

• Ran Zadok. ‘KASSITES’. In Encyclopaedia Iranica Online, edited by Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York. Accessed May 10, 2023. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/2330-4804_EIRO_COM_1514. 

• "Amarna Ša-an-har-ra, Ša-an-ha-ar (from Mitanni and Alashia), Hittite Ša-an-ha-ra(-az), Egyptian Śngr, Old Testament Šnʿr < *Šamǵara (Old Babylonian gentilic Samharû), presumably a Kassite tribe, gave its name to Babylonia while it was occupied by the Kassites."

Canaan

Persia

Roman

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/home.html

Sexidecimal System

Jordan River Valley

http://www.biblearchaeology.org/post/2008/05/Did-the-Israelites-Conquer-Jericho-A-New-Look-at-the-Archaeological-Evidence.aspx#Article

The Walls of Jericho: An Alternative Interpretation

http://www.biblewalks.com/Sites/JordanJericho.html

Adam (Damiya) Bridge

Gilgal Argaman - biblewalks.com

Gilgal, Israel: Place Joshua, Samuel, Saul, Tabernacle, Altar, 12 Stone Monument, Footprint, Located - HolyLandSite.com (30:32)

Ancient DNA Is Rewriting Human (and Neanderthal) History - theatlantic.com - 2018 interview giving the new basics.

What ancient DNA says about us - newhumanist.org.uk - Reich said, “I expect that no intellectually elegant and emotionally satisfying molecular explanation for behavioural modernity will ever be found." -  "...he is saying that the famous search for “the gene that made us human” is futile."

http://www.biblewalks.com/index.html

http://archlgy.haifa.ac.il/staff/zertal.htm

Modern Israel and Palestine

"The Nakba Obsession" by SOL STERN - The Palestinian national narrative is the biggest obstacle to peace in the Middle East. City Journal, Summer 2010

Qumran

http://www.biblewalks.com/Sites/Qumran.html

Gezer

http://www.biblewalks.com/Sites/Gezer.html

http://www.telgezer.com/

http://www.hadashot-esi.org.il/report_detail_eng.aspx?id=1820&mag_id=118

Quest for Solomon's Mines - pbs.org - Excavations and finds at Khirbet en Nahas and Khirbet Qeiyafa showing evidence of 10th century Israelite and Edomite culture.

Tour Egypt - Highlights: Who was Tut?

Ancient Egypt Online

Ancient Egypt by George Rawlinson - wikisource.org - (1886)

Figure 5: Shared drift and mixture analysis of three ancient Egyptians with other modern and ancient populations.

Climate

Climate Change, Nomadic Pastoralism and Astronomy at Nabta Playa, Southern Egypt 

Recent environmental change and prehistoric human activity in Egypt and Northern Sudan

Religion

"Egyptian Monotheism" by E.A.W. Budge- www.sacred-texts.com - Chapter in TUTANKHAMEN AMENISM, ATENISM AND EGYPTIAN MONOTHEISM (1923). A monotheistic consideration of Egyptian religion.

The Celestial River: Identifying the Ancient Egyptian Constellations - sino-platonic.org PDF - relation of Egyptian constellations to Greek Constellations. Virgo is associated with a mother goddess.

Hyksos

Hyksos - ancient.eu 

The Expulsion of the Hyksos and the End of the Middle Bronze Age: A Reassessment in Light of Recent Chronological Research - researchgate.net - Höflmayer, Felix. (2019). Advocates High (older) Bronze Age chronology for Egypt based on carbon dating. This seems to preclude the "academic tradition" that Middle Bronze destruction was an effect of the expulsion of the Hyksos. Destruction would rather be the result of the campaigns of Thutmose III or some other cause. ->

• Year 11, second month of the harvest season. Heliopolis was entered. The first month of the inundation season, 23rd day, the commander (?) of the army (?) attacked (?) Zaru [Tjaru]. 25th day, it was heard that Zaru was entered. Year 11, first month of the inundation season, third day. Birth of Set; the majesty of this god caused his voice to be heard. Birth of Isis, the heavens rained. - last entry of Rhind Mathematical Papyrus 

• Ahmose son of Abana, Autobiography of - st-andrews.ac.uk

“From where came the Hyksos and where did they go”, in: M. Marée (ed.), The Second Intermediate Period (Thirteenth - Seventeenth Dynasties): Current Research, Future Prospects, OLA 192, Leuven 2010: Peeters, 139-181. - academia.edu - Avaris was a harbor, first for trade and then later the mooring of the Egyptian Navy. Trade, primarily through the harbor, is the attraction that brought Levantine people to the area from the times of the Old Kingdom. Egypt's main trade partner was Byblos and the bulk of the evidence points to Northern Levant and Syria as the cultural source of the Hyksos leaders.

• A papyrus in the Brooklyn Museum 61 from the early Thirteenth Dynasty documents the presence of Asiatics in Egyptian households, even in provincial areas of Upper Egypt. From the same papyrus we also know that these Asiatics received Egyptian names but that their original names continued to be recorded. With their new names, they became quickly assimilated and could even have careers at the palace and in the administration; most of them blended in with the native Egyptians. 62

• the majority of imports from the MB I phases in Tell el-Dab'a originated from the northern Levant. 86 In the transitional period of MB I to II (Phase F, c. 1700 BC), there were also increased imports from southern Palestine, but still these did not match the volume of northern imports at that time.

• Probably the Egyptians already identified the North Syrian storm god [Baal-zephon/Hadad] with Seth in the late Twelfth Dynasty.

New Renderings of Egyptian Texts: II. The Expulsion of the Hyksos. (1918) - jstor.org - Gunn, B., & Gardiner, A. (1918) The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, 5(1), 36-56. doi:10.2307/3853549 - An early article on the Hyksos with all the evidence as of 1918 and a number of speculations that haven't turned out true.

Pharoahs

http://carlos.emory.edu/PDF/Classroom_TUTorial_Names_of_Tut.pdf

Akhenaten and the Amarna Period By Dr Kate Spence - bbc.co.uk

Avaris/Pi Rameses

“The Topography of New Kingdom Avaris and Per-Ramesses”, in: M. Collier and S. Snape (eds.), Ramesside Studies in Honour of K.A. Kitchen, Bolton 2011: Rutherford Press , 23-51. - academia.edu - Excellent summary of the topography and layout of the Hyksos capital and later of Ramses II.