Home › Bible Study Links › Background of the Old Testament › Extra-biblical texts (OT)

Extra-biblical texts (OT)

  1. Alalakh – History of site | Excavation and bibliography
  2. Gilgamesh – photo | Eng. transl.
  3. Hammurapi Stele (Code of Hammurabi, c. 1790 BCE) – photo | Eng. transl.
  4. Israelite seal to Pedaiah – photo & transl.
  5. Merneptah stela
  6. Nuzi tablets– Nuzi exhibit at Semitic Museum of Harvard University | Index of texts
  7. Epic of Ishtar and Izdubar
  8. Annals of Assur-Nasir-Pal
  9. Clay cylinder of Nabopolassar (photo and commentary)
  10. Babylonian Chronicles (photo, Eng. transl. of excerpts, and commentary)
  11. Nabonidus stele (photo and commentary)
  12. Cyrus cylinder (photo, Eng. transl. and commentary)
  13. Monolith of Shalmaneser II (1031-1019 BCE, Eng. transl.) | (Eng. transl.)
  14. Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III (858-824 BCE) (photo, Eng. transl., and commentary)
  15. Third campaign of Sennacherib (701 BCE, Eng. transl. of the Taylor Cylinder)(Eng. transl.)
  16. Inscription of Nebuchadnezzar II (Eng. transl., and commentary)
  17. Inscription of Tiglath Pileser I (Eng. transl., and commentary)
  18. Sculptures & Inscription of Darius the Great on rock of Behistun (Persia) [TOP]
  19. Herodotus — The Histories (covering roughly 700–475 BCE) | Greek text (you will have to configure the display) | English text (scholarly version, with commentaries & notes) | English text only (George Rawlinson translation)
  20. Xenophon — Anabasis (covering 379–371 BCE) | Greek text (you will have to configure the display) | English text only

Want to dive deeper?

Online resources

  1. Eberhard Schrader. The Cuneiform Inscriptions and the Old Testament (1885, indexed by OT book).
  2. James Alexander Craig. Assyrian and Babylonian Religious Texts (2 vols, 1895)
  3. Ira Price. The Monuments and the Old Testament (1900)
  4. Archival Texts of the Assyrian Empire (ATAE)
  5. Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature (ETCSL)
  6. Electronic Tools and Ancient Near East Archives (ETANA)
  7. Gateways to Babylon

For purchase