Current Projects

Inscribed Literacy and Literary Production in Early Israel, Magic and Ritual in Early West Semitic Cultures, Death and Afterlife, the Iconic and the Aniconic, Ritual Violence and Human Sacrifice.

Brian is currently completing a monograph, Writing Sacred: Inscribed Literacies and Literary Production in Ancient Israel and its World (contracted with Oxford University Press). He also recently authored The Materiality of Power: Explorations in the Social History of Early Israelite Magic. He is currently preparing a comprehensive essay for the Oxford Handbooks that will also serve to update the revised version of his book, Israel’s Beneficent Dead: Ancestor Cult and Necromancy in Ancient Israelite Religion and Tradition. Brian has a volume in progress as well on one of the Holy Land’s most important archaeological discoveries, the inscribed stela of Mesha, king of Moab (or the Moabite Stone) which was found in Jordan in 1868. He has published previously on the Moabite Stone and recently initiated a preliminary autopsy of its alphabetic inscription at the Louvre.

In addition to serving on various publication projects as a series editor or guest editor for the American Schools of Oriental Research, the Society of Biblical Literature, Sheffield Academic Press, and E. J. Brill Publishers, Brian has published three books as a contributor and volume editor: Contextualizing Israel’s Sacred Writings: Ancient LiteracyOrality, and Literary Production which was nominated for the American Schools of Oriental Research annual book award, Kuntillet ‘Ajrud: Iron Age Inscriptions and Iconography, and one of the Society of Biblical Literature’s best selling publications, The Quest for the Historical Israel: Debating Archaeology and the History of Early Israel which was co-published by E. J. Brill. Brian was recently appointed by the Society of Biblical Literature’s Research and Publication Committee as General Editor of the refereed series Archaeology and Biblical Studies and has formed the series’ inaugural editorial board. He also serves as a member on the editorial board of the peer reviewed Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions.

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