About the Director
Alan Lenzi is Professor of Humanities and History in the →History Department at →University of the Pacific (Stockton, CA). He earned his Ph.D. in Ancient Near Eastern Studies and Hebrew Bible from →Brandeis University in 2006. He specializes in
the study of first millennium ancient Near Eastern religious traditions, including the interconnections between ancient Mesopotamia and biblical literature. His work on a new edition and translation of the Babylonian poem Ludlul
bēl nēmeqi (with Amar Annus in 2010; →library) led him back to the topic of Akkadian
prayers, especially the shuilas, which he had studied previously under
Tzvi Abusch at Brandeis. During the work on Reading Akkadian Prayers and
Hymns: An Introduction (2011; →library; →full text), which introduces, annotates, and translates twenty-nine
Akkadian prayers (several of which are shuila-prayers) for students of
the Akkadian language, he saw the need for a new
critical edition of the shuila-prayer corpus. This online project, begun in the fall of 2013, is the first step in that direction.
For more of Lenzi’s work, see →here.