Anson F. Rainey (1930–2011) was emeritus professor of Ancient Near Eastern Cultures and Semitic Linguistics at Tel Aviv University, where his teaching responsibilities have (delete) included Ancient Near Eastern languages such as Ugaritic, Akkadian, Ancient Hebrew, Phoenician and Egyptian. In addition, he has (delete) taught Historical Geography of the Land of the Bible. He was also adjunct professor of Historical Geography at Bar Ilan University and at the American Institute for Holy Land Studies. He received his Th.M. in Old Testament studies from the California Baptist Theological Seminary and his Ph.D. in Mediterranean Studies from Brandeis University.
Prof. Rainey was the only living scholar who had personally collated all the Amarna correspondence from Cairo, London, Berlin, Paris, Brussels, New York, Chicago, Istanbul and Moscow. His four-volume work on the hybrid language of the Amarna Letters from Canaan is the only work of its kind and has become a standard reference for all scholars of cuneiform and Northwest Semitic who study and teach those unique epistles. Teaching History and Historical Geography of Bible Lands: A Syllabus and the update and expansion of The Carta Bible Atlas were his last major contributions to biblical scholarship.
