Anson Rainey

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Anson Rainey (1980)

Anson Frank Rainey (January 11, 1930 – February 19, 2011) was professor emeritus of ancient Near Eastern cultures and

Amarna tablets, the noted administrative letters from the period of Pharaoh Akhenaten's rule during the 18th Dynasty of Egypt.[1] He authored and edited books and articles on the cultures, languages and geography of the Biblical lands.[2]

Early life

Anson Rainey was born in

Dallas, Texas
, in 1930. Upon the death of his father that same year, he was left with his maternal grandparents. He attended Brown Military Academy in
San Diego, California, from 1943 to 1946. After one semester of study there – as a cadet battalion commander – he served as assistant commandant at Southern California Military Academy in Long Beach, California, for the spring semester of 1947, before transferring to John Brown University in Siloam Springs, Arkansas. [citation needed
]

Education

From 1948 to 1949 he worked as assistant commandant at the Brown Military Academy of the Ozarks, in

California Baptist Theological Seminary in Covina, California, where he took three degrees: an M.A. in Old Testament (May 1953); a B.D. in Biblical theology (May 1954); and an M.Th. in Old Testament (May 1955).[citation needed
]

From September 1953 until May 1954, Rainey was a teaching fellow in Hebrew, Old Testament and New Testament introduction. In 1954 he was appointed assistant professor and taught for two more years. From 1955 to 1956, he studied at the

Hebrew course and then in archaeology and in the Egyptian, Coptic and Phoenician languages, all in Hebrew. At the same time, he completed the basic research for his doctoral dissertation. In 1961, he returned to Brandeis as a research assistant. Upon completion of his dissertation on the Social Structure of Ugarit, he was awarded his Ph.D. in June 1962. [citation needed
]

However, Rainey's main activity for the academic year 1962–63 was research and study under a grant from the Warburg Fund at the Hebrew University. This award was renewed for 1963–64, and the book that resulted was translated into Hebrew and published by the Bialik Institute in August 1967. It was a revision of his earlier dissertation, expanded to include new source material that had subsequently become available. He began teaching Ugaritic and Akkadian at Tel Aviv University. From 1965 to 1966, he served as acting chairman of the Ancient Near Eastern Studies Department. In 1966, his status was changed to lecturer in Semitic languages. A year later he was appointed senior lecturer. In 1970 he was elevated to associate professor of ancient Near Eastern cultures. The department was reorganized under the title, Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Cultures, in which he served as coordinator for Mesopotamian studies until October 1975. A new department of Semitic linguistics was also organized, and from 1971 to 1972 he was its acting chairman. He was promoted to the rank of full professor of ancient Near Eastern cultures and Semitic linguistics effective July 1, 1981.[citation needed]

Scholarship

Rainey served on the editorial boards of Israel Oriental Studies, an annual, and of Tel Aviv, a quarterly, both publications of Tel Aviv University. He continued his connection with the American Institute of Holy Land Studies – now the

el-‘Amârna Tablets in the museum were all collated.[citation needed
]

From 1982 to 1985 he began teaching part-time at

Bar Ilan University in the Department of Eretz-Israel Studies. During a third sabbatical in 1983–84, he was visiting research scholar at the University of Pennsylvania
. During a fourth sabbatical in 1988–89, he was again visiting research scholar at that university. During a fifth sabbatical for 1995–96, he was again visiting research scholar at the university, where he also taught a seminar in Northwest Semitic inscriptions. From 1996 until September 30, 1998, he continued to teach as full professor at Tel Aviv University. On October 1, 1998, he became emeritus professor there but taught a course in historical geography during the academic years 1998–99, 1999–2000 and 2000–2001.

He spent July 1999 in

Seoul, South Korea. In August and September 2002 he was a visiting research scholar at the University of Melbourne, Australia.[citation needed
]

From 2002 to 2007 he taught as adjunct professor at Bar Ilan University, Orot College and Jerusalem University College. From 2003 to 2004 he spent ten months collating the el-‘Amârna tablets at the Vorderasiatische Museum in Berlin and at other venues in Europe. A completely new edition of the tablets is envisioned along with photographic and internet recording. The edition of the texts and the notes derived from collations will be placed on the internet. During the 53rd Rencontre of the International Association of Assyriologists in Moscow in July 2007, he collated the last three el-‘Amârna tablets, at the Pushkin Museum.[citation needed]

Death

Anson Rainey died, aged 81, from

Tel Hashomer, Israel
.

His wife Zipora Cochavi-Rainey, continued his research on the el-‘Amârna tablets after his death.

References

  1. ^ Rollston, C. (2011): Among the last of the titans: Aspects of Professor Anson Rainey's life and legacy (1930–2011) (February 20, 2011); retrieved May 22, 2017
  2. ^ Obituary (Tel Aviv University)

External links

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