Editorial Statement

Introduction

Contributors

PART ONE BALAAM IN THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE ANCIENT NEAR EAST, AND COMPARABLE FIGURES IN ANCIENT GREECE

1. Balaam the Villain: The History of Reception of the Balaam Narrative in the Pentateuch and the Former Prophets (Ed Noort)

2. Bala?am and Deir ?Alla (Émile Puech)

3. Balaam, Mopsus and Melampous: Tales of Travelling Seers (Jan N. Bremmer)

PART TWO BALAAM IN ANCIENT JUDAISM

4. Balaam in the Dead Sea Scrolls (Florentino García Martínez)

5. A Qumran Cave 2 Fragment Preserving Part of Numbers 23:5–7[8] (2Q29 1) (Eibert Tigchelaar)

6. Balaam and Enoch (Eibert Tigchelaar)

7. The Rewriting of Numbers 22–24 in Pseudo-Philo, Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum 18 (Jacques T.A.G.M. van Ruiten)

8. Balaam as the Sophist Par Excellence in Philo of Alexandria: Philo's Projection of an Urgent Contemporary Debate onto Moses' Pentateuchal Narratives (George H. van Kooten)

9. 'A Star Shall Come out of Jacob': A Critical Evaluation of the Balaam Oracle in the Context of Jewish Revolts in Roman Times (Stefan Beyerle)

10. Balaam's Fourth Oracle (Numbers 24:15–19) According to the Aramaic Targums (Alberdina Houtman & Harry Sysling)

11. Interpret Him as Much as You Want: Balaam in the Babylonian Talmud (Ronit Nikolsky)

PART THREE BALAAM IN THE NEW TESTAMENT AND EARLY CHRISTIANITY

12. Balaam and the Star of the Magi (Tobias Nicklas)

13. Balaam in Revelation 2:14 (Jan Willem van Henten)

14. Balaam and 2 Peter 2:15: 'They Have Followed in the Steps of Balaam' ( Jude 11) (Tord Fornberg)

15. Speaking Asses in the Acts of Thomas: An Intertextual and Cognitive Perspective (István Czachesz)

16. 'To Bless with a Mouth Bent on Cursing': Patristic Interpretations of Balaam (Num 24:17) (Johan Leemans)

PART FOUR BALAAM IN THE KORAN AND EARLY KORANIC COMMENTARIES

17. Bal'am in Early Koranic Commentaries (Fred Leemhuis)

Index of Ancient Texts

I. Hebrew Bible

II. Apocrypha and Septuagint

III. Pseudepigrapha

IV. Dead Sea Scrolls and Related Texts

V. Philo of Alexandria

VI. Flavius Josephus

VII. Rabbinic and later Jewish Texts

1. Mishnah

2. Tosefta

3. Palestinian Talmud

4. Babylonian Talmud

5. Midrashim

6. Targumim

VIII. Greek and Latin Pagan Texts

1. Authors

2. Papyri

3. Inscriptions

IX. Christian Texts

1. New Testament

2. Patristic and other Christian Writings

3. Gnostic Writings

X. Koran and Koranic Commentaries