Prof. Takayoshi M. Oshima is a visiting professor at the Institute of History of Ancient Civilizations, Northeast Normal University, China. He completed his doctorate in Assyriology at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and a Doctor Philosophiae Habilitatus in Ancient Near Eastern Studies at the University of Leipzig. He specializes in Sumerian and Akkadian religious texts, the wisdom literature of the ancient Near East, including the biblical wisdom literature, and ancient Mesopotamian iconography. Among his publications are Cuneiform in Canaan (with Wayne Horowitz), Babylonian Poems of Pious Sufferers, Affronter le mal en Babylonie (with Stéphanie Antonioz), and Teaching Morality, the results of a conference he organized. Currently, he is preparing Gods’ Punishing Hands: The Interdependence of the Divine Will and Human Ethics in Cuneiform Literature, a revised version of his Habilitationsschrift.