Event

This lecture -- co-sponsored by Penn's departments of Religious Studies and NELC, and Center for Ancient Studies -- will explore the reinterpretation of the Nebuchadnezzar's monuments from Lebanon as a representation of the myth of the Watchers known from Daniel 4, the Book of Giants, and the Book of Watchers. It shows how this Jewish myth is a branch of a larger Aramaic myth, whose origins lie clearly in Syria-Lebanon. This has wide ranging implications for apocalypticism and is nicely visual with previously unexplored cuneiform reliefs.  It connects the Jewish sources with CD as well as Philo Byblos and others.