Over the past century, archaeologists' discovery of numerous documents from the ancient Near East, such as Hammurabi's Code and the Babylonian flood story, have fueled an ongoing debate as to the Hebrew Bible's relationship with the world from which it emerged. The Bible's own view, that Israel ("a people that dwells apart") was radically different from her environment, is belied by its repeated concern with the Israelites' vulnerability to the attractions of their world. Meanwhile, modern scholarship has demonstrated a remarkable array of similarities between Israeli's culture and that of the surrounding countries. The contributors include H.W.F. Saggs, Morton Smith, Moshe Weinfeld, William L.Moran, Volkmar Fritz, Ernest Wurthwein, Abraham Malamar, Charles Fensham, Shalom Spiegel, W.C. Gwaltney, H.Gazelles, Yigael Yadin, William W.Hallo, Moshe Greenberg, J.J.Finkelstein, Shemaryahu Talmon and Peter Machinist.