I owe many teachers and colleagues a debt of gratitude for what I learned from them as my studies in this subject went on. They are:
My teachers on the Hebrew Bible faculty at Harvard University, especially Professors Ernest Wright, of blessed memory, and Frank Moore Cross.
My teachers on the Hebrew Bible faculty at the Jewish Theological Seminary, especially Professor Yohanan Muffs.
My teacher at the University of Miami, Professor Ronald Veenker.
My hosts and colleagues at the University of Cambridge, where I was a Visiting Fellow at Clare Hall, especially Professors John Emerton and H. G. M. Williamson (now Regius Professor of Hebrew at Oxford).
My hosts and colleagues at Oxford University, where I was a Visiting Scholar at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew Studies, especially Professor Ernest Nicholson.
My colleagues on the faculty of the University of California, San Diego, Professors David Noel Freedman, David Goodblatt, Thomas Levy, and William Propp, and our distinguished Visiting Faculty in Hebrew Bible and Archaeology, especially Professors Alan Cooper, Baruch Halpern, Menahem Haran, Avi Hurvitz, Jack Lundbom, Shalom Paul, Yigal Shiloh, of blessed memory, Moshe Weinfeld, and Ziony Zevit.
My colleagues in the Biblical Colloquium and in the Biblical Colloquium West.
I owe a different sort of debt of gratitude to the persons who made it possible to produce this book:
My agent, Elaine Markson, without whom there would not be any of my books.
My publisher, Stephen Hanselman, and the other fine people at HarperSanFrancisco, a division of HarperCollins, especially Sam Barry, Margery Buchanan, Jeff Hobbs, Terri Leonard, Michael Maudlin, Ann Moru, Julia Roller, Mark Tauber, Cindy DiTiberio, Jim Warner, and Liz Winer.
And, as always, I am grateful to my wife, Randy Linda, and our daughters, Jesse and Alexa, without whom not much of anything happens.