Comparative Bible Research and the Mari Archives. Comments and Reflections

Abstract

Comparative research aims to ful l reciprocal functions, allowing knowledge of one culture to enrich that of another. For this issue of Revista Claroscuro, greeting the 85th birthday of Mari's resurrection, I open on the circumstances and premises that launched such an assessment before focusing on Mari among other major archeological discoveries between the two Great Wars. Since then, exploitations of Mari's rich archives to illustrate Biblical documents generated as much as a millennium later has experienced peaks and occultations, harmonizing with scholarly permutations in the academic study of the Bible. I touch on these occasions, but also reflect on what we may be missing in an era of singular absorption with a later First Millennium setting for the integration of Hebraic lore.