We offer this collection of essays as a tribute to Ben on the occasion of his 65th birthday, which falls on January 19. Ben has been a teacher to us not out of institutional obligation, but out of a genuine interest in younger scholars and a true pedagogical gift. Ben has taught all of us how to think better about early Jewish languages and culture, but he has also modeled a way of being a scholar that goes deeper: a look at his CV, with its many co-written and co-edited works, shows that our scholarship is better when it is collaborative.
