Instead of a standard Festschrift, Richard Ellis has been honored with this collection of studies on temple building. The first part explores the richness of textual evidence in Ancient Near East cultures: among others Sumerian, Babylonian, Assyrian, Elamite, Hittite, Achaemenid. The second part is devoted to various passages of the Hebrew Bible dealing with the building of temples: among others the building of the First Temple, the Chronicler's Temple Building Account, temple reform in Ezekiel and the instructions for building the tabernacle in Exodus 25ff. The volume is supplemented by an extensive collection of short descriptions of Ancient Near Eastern and Biblical Hebrew texts dealing with temple building and will thus serve as a comprehensive and useful reader.