ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

One of the great pleasures when you have finished writing a book like this
is to thank the many people who helped in different ways during the years
of research. Although working on a dissertation is usually a solitary activ-
ity, for me it was, fortunately, a social one. Without the assistance of vari-
ous people this book would not have turned out as it has. Needless to say,
however, I remain solely responsible for the content of this work and any
mistakes there may be.
I owe a tremendous debt to my supervisors Eibert Tigchelaar and Floren-
tino García Martínez for their confidence, their help, suggestions, chal-
lenges, criticism, their time for and attention to all my questions, and for
the many stimulating discussions. Eibert and Florentino, each in their own
way, represent great examples for young scholars and I am fortunate and feel
very proud to have had them as my teachers. I hope our friendship lasts ad
multos annos!
The Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies in Groningen has been a
wonderful place to work and I thank everyone for their support, especially
my fellow PhD students and the staff at the faculty library and administra-
tion.
At Yale University I wish to thank John Collins, Eckart Frahm, Dale
Martin, Matt Neujahr, and Michael Peppard for their interest in my work
during our stay at the Divinity School in the spring of 2004. I thank John
and Adela Collins for their hospitality and kindness towards us while we
were at Yale.
My research has benefited from presentations on various occasions, but
one especially has been very important. I wish to thank the Nordic Network
in Qumran Studies, its board Torleif Elgvin and Hanne von Weissenberg,
and all the participants during the Jerusalem symposium in September 2005
for the opportunity to present a paper, for the wonderful atmosphere, and a
very special meeting. When I stayed at the École Biblique, Émile Puech
was very kind to devote some of his time to discussing 4Q534.
I am most grateful to Professor Wolfgang Hübner for sharing his great
knowledge of Hellenistic astrology with me and providing valuable sugges-
tions over e-mail and for his willingness to read an early draft of Chapter
Three. Wytse Keulen I thank for discussing the Greco-Roman physio-
gnomic material during my presentation at the Ancient World Seminar in
Groningen and afterwards, and for reading Chapter Two. I wish to thank
Herman Vanstiphout (Stip) for reading the Babylonian physiognomic mate-
rial in Chapter Two and discussing it with me. I thank Ton Hilhorst for
improving my translation of Hephaestion, Jan Bremmer, the reading com-
mittee (Pieter van der Horst, Geurt-Henk van Kooten and Tobias Nicklas),
 vii

and Ed Noort for reading the entire manuscript at the end. Many thanks are
due to Julia Harvey and Florien Bulens for quickly checking and improving
the English of the entire manuscript and the Dutch summary respectively.
I wish to thank Francis Schmidt and Jonathan Ben-Dov for discussing
over e-mail and in person various issues of ancient Jewish astronomy and
astrology and Wout van Bekkum and Ronit Nikolsky for discussing the
medieval Jewish physiognomic texts.
Finally, but above all, I thank my friends, family, and Annemieke ter
Brugge.

Mladen Popovi
Groningen, August 2006