Authored Publications
In addition to having published articles on various aspects of ancient Levantine cultures, religions and histories and in biblical studies, Brian is completing a forthcoming monograph, Writing Sacred: Literacies and the Production of Literary and Religious Texts in the World of Ancient Israel (contracted with Oxford University Press). He has also recently authored The Materiality of Power: Explorations in the Social History of Early Israelite Magic (Mohr-Siebeck, 2016) and a previous book titled Israel’s Beneficent Dead: Ancestor Cult and Necromancy in Ancient Israelite Religion and Tradition (Mohr-Siebeck, 1994) which was revised and re-released two years later (Eisenbrauns, 1996). Brian also has a work in progress on one of the most important archaeological discoveries from the Holy Land, the inscribed Mesha Stela or Moabite Stone discovered in 1868 in Jordan (ancient Moab). He has previously published on the Moabite Stone and completed a preliminary autopsy of its alphabetic inscription at the Louvre where the stela is now housed.
Edited Publications and Editorial Service to the Profession
In addition to serving on various publication projects as a series editor or journal 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 volumes as both contributor and editor: Contextualizing Israel’s Sacred Writings: Ancient Literacy, Orality, and Literary Production (The Society of Biblical Literature, 2015) which was nominated for the American Schools of Oriental Research annual book award, Kuntillet ‘Ajrud: Iron Age Inscriptions and Iconography (Western Academic Press, 2015) 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 (2007) which was also 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 Archaeology and Biblical Studies book series for which he formed the series’ first ever Editorial Board of eight members in 2016. He has served for fifteen years on the Editorial Board of the peer reviewed Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions.
Abstracts of Recent Publications
Brian B. Schmidt, The Materiality of Power: Explorations in the Social History of Ancient Israelite Magic. Forschungen zum Alten Testament 105. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016. XV, 258 pages. ISBN 978-3-16-153302-0 or eBook PDF.
The Materiality of Power explores five unique case studies in which architectural spaces, artifacts, icons, epigraphs and biblical manuscripts corroborate the unprecedented existence of a robust daimonic realm in late pre-exilic Israel along with a rudimentary pandemonium that foreshadow later demonological constructs. These material data preserve a countervailing world of apotropaism; a world over which YHWH and his Asherah, depicted in art and epigraph as the internationally renowned Egyptian protective deities Bes and Beset, served as co-presiders. The material and epigraphic evidence from such sites as Kuntillet Ajrud, Ketef Hinnom, Khirbet el-Qom along with the manuscript evidence for Deut. 32 and 1 Sam. 28 indicate that pandemonium members like “the Evil One,” “the Enemies,” and Reshef wreaked havoc on the living and the dead. Yet, other material media such as amulets and inscribed performative speech (“May He (YHWH) bless you and keep you…”), give expression to a counteractive realm designed to manifest apotropaic empowerment. These texts and objects also highlight Asherah’s role in that magical realm as YHWH’s mediatrix (either as consort or mother). Along with an entourage of protective spirits like the Shedim, the Gods and the Divine Sons, Asherah executed the supernatural world’s previously undocumented Iron Age overture to protect mortal world from the power of harmful daimons.
Brian B. Schmidt, (volume editor), Contextualizing Israel’s Sacred Writings: Ancient Literacy, Orality, and Literary Production. Ancient Israel and Its Literature 22. Atlanta: SBL Press, 2015. 358 Pages. ISBN-10: 1628371188; ISBN-13: 978-1628371185.
The contributors are James Bos (Ole Miss), David Carr (Columbia), André Lemaire (Sorbonne), Robert Miller (Catholic University), Nadav Na’aman (Tel Aviv), Raymond Person Jr. (Northern Ohio), Frank H. Polak (Tel Aviv), Christopher A. Rollston (George Washington), Seth Sanders (UC Davis), Joachim Schaper (Edinburgh), Brian Schmidt (Michigan), William Schniedewind (UCLA), Elsie Stern (Reconstructionist College) and Jessica Whisenant (Independent Scholar).
Situated historically between the invention of the alphabet, on the one hand, and the creation of ancient Israel’s sacred writings, on the other, is the emergence of literary production in the ancient Levant. In this timely collection of essays by an international cadre of scholars entitled Contextualizing Israel’s Sacred Writings, contributors explore the dialectic between the oral and the written, the intersection of orality with literacy, and the advent of literary compositions as a prelude to the emergence of Israel’s biblical writings and their sources. Contributors also examine a range of related topics including scripturalization, the compositional dimensions of orality and textuality as they engage biblical poetry, prophecy, and narrative along with their antecedents, and the ultimate autonomy of ‘the written’ in early Israel.
Brian B. Schmidt (volume guest editor), Kuntillet ‘Ajrud: Iron Age Inscriptions and Iconography Papers from the 2013 Meetings of the EABS (Leipzig) and the IOSOT (Münich). Rolling Hills Estates: Western Academic Press, 2015. 126 Pages. ISBN-13: 978-0-9856141-8.
The contributors include Israel Finkelstein (Tel Aviv), Herbert Niehr (Tübingen), Nadav Naaman (Tel Aviv), Brian Schmidt (Michigan), Brent Strawn and Joel Lemon (Emory).
This collection of groundbreaking essays is dedicated to the study of the northern Sinai site of Kuntillet Ajrud. It was borne in the throes of several recent events impacting the study of the site and its finds. The first event was the release of the final report in 2012 following a forty-year hiatus. The second and third events involved expert presentations at two successive society meetings within months of that release. These included the 2013 iteration of the European Association of Biblical Studies in Leipzig, and shortly following upon that, the meeting of the International Organization for the Study of the Old Testament in Münich. In anticipation that the then newly published report by Zeev Meshel would elicit a lively and substantive response from the research community, Brian organized a special panel of presenters dedicated entirely to the Kuntillet Ajrud finds for the IOSOT meeting. At that meeting, panel papers were presented by Tallay Ornan, Israel Finkelstein, Kyle McCarter, Nadav Naaman, and Herbert Niehr. Indeed the large turnout confirmed the sustained high level of interest in the topic and the following Q&A session was highly informative. At the meeting of the EABS in Leipzig, Brian presented a paper on Kuntillet Ajrud in a session dedicated to the interface of iconographic and biblical tropes.
