Professor of History and Ancient Studies

Year Joined RCNJ: 1974

Contact Information

• Phone: (201) 684-7420
• Email: ispar@ramapo.edu
• Office: B-202
• Office Hours: TF 12:00-1:30 pm; Also By Appt

Education:

• B.A., The American University
• M.A., Michigan State University
• Ph.D., University of Minnesota

Courses Offered:

• World Civilizations I & II
• Ancient Law
• Beginnings of Civilization
• Ancient Egypt

Teaching Interests:

• Biblical Archaeology and History
• Ancient Greece
• Ancient Rome
• Akkadian I & II
• Approaching the Divine

Scholarly Activity:

Books

• Ira Spar and  Michael Jursa, The Ebabbar Temple Archive and Other Texts from the Fourth to the First Millennium B.C. Cuneiform Texts in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, vol. IV, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art , 2014

Articles

• “Babylon and the Bible,” in J. Aruz (ed.), From Assyria to Iberia, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2014
• “Cyrus and the Judean Diaspora,”  http://www.metmuseum.org/about-the-museum/now-at-the-met/features/2013/cyrus-and-the-judean-diaspora, July 2013
• “Imperial Attire and National Identity in Ancient Assyria, Qajar Iran and Qing China,”World History Connected, Spring 2012
• “Ashurbanipal,” in Dictionary of African Biography. Henry Louis Gates Jr. (ed.), Oxford University Press, 2011

Papers

• “Ancient Temple Economies: A Comparative Typology,” University of Hanoi, Hawaii Pacific University and the World History Association, Vietnam Symposium, University of Hanoi, December 2013
• “Israelite and Egyptian Exiles in the Babylonian Diaspora,” World History Association, Minneapolis, Minnesota, June 2013