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Language Studies 11-12 is dedicated to Prof. Avi Hurvitz, who has taught for over four decades in the Depts. of Bible and Hebrew Language at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Many of his scholarly contributions have become classics of research. Twenty-four friends, colleagues, and former students have contributed articles on linguistic aspects of topics relevant to Hurvitz’s academic career: Hebrew of the First Temple Period, Hebrew and Aramaic of the Second Temple Period, language borrowings, dating of biblical texts, wisdom literature, Akkadian, and Ugaritic.

In 1961 William L. Moran published The Hebrew Language in Its Northwest Semitic Background (The Bible and the Ancient Near East: Essays in Honor of William Foxwell Albright), in which he presented a state-of-the-art description of the linguistic milieu out of which Biblical Hebrew developed. Moran stressed the features found in earlier Northwest Semitic languages that are similar to Hebrew and he demonstrated how the study of those languages sheds light on Biblical Hebrew. Since Moran wrote, our knowledge of both the Hebrew of the biblical period and of Northwest Semitic has increased considerably. In the light of new epigraphic finds and the significant advances in the fields of Biblical Hebrew and Northwest Semitic in the past four decades, the Institute for Advanced Studies of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem convened an international research group during the 2001-2002 academic year on the topic "Biblical Hebrew in Its Northwest Semitic Setting: Typological and Historical Perspectives." The volume presents the fruits of the year-long collaboration and contains twenty articles based on lectures given during the year by members of the group and invited guests: Moshe Bar-Asher, Joshua Blau, John A. Emerton, Steven E. Fassberg, W. Randall Garr, Edward L. Greenstein, John Huehnergard, Avi Hurvitz, Jan Joosten, Menaem Z. Kaddari, Geoffrey Khan, André Lemaire, Mordechai Mishor, Adina Moshavi, Alviero Niccacci, M. O'Connor, Frank H. Polak, Elisha Qimron, Gary Rendsburg, and Ada Yardeni. The wide array of subjects discussed has important implications for the study of Biblical Hebrew and Northwest Semitic.