You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
This book investigates the archaeological, epigraphic, and biblical evidence for the course of Ammon's history, setting it squarely within the context of ancient Near Eastern imperialism. Drawing on cross-cultural parallels from the archaeology of empires, Tyson elucidates the dynamic processes by which the local Ammonite elite made the cousins of biblical Israel visible to history. Tyson explains changes in the region of Ammon during the Iron Age II, namely the increasing numbers of locally produced elite items as well as imports, growth in the use of writing for administrative and display purposes, and larger numbers of sedentary settlements; in the light of the transformative role that the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian empires played in the ancient Near East. The study also widens the conversation to consider cross-cultural examples of how empires affect peripheral societies.
Joint winner of the 2011 Biblical Archaeology Society Publication Award in the category "Best Scholarly Book on Archaeology" The archaeology of the Holy Land is undergoing major change. 'Historical Biblical Archaeology and the Future' describes the paradigm shift brought about by objective science-based dating methods, geographic information systems, anthropological models, and digital technology tools. The book serves as a model for how researchers can investigate the relationship between ancient texts (both sacred and profane) and the archaeological record. Influential archaeologists and biblical scholars examine a range of texts, materials and cultures: the Vedas and India; the Homeric legends and Greek Classical Archaeology; the Sagas and Icelandic archaeology; Islamic Archaeology; and the Umayyad, Abbasid, and Ayyubid periods. The groundbreaking essays offer a foundation for future research in biblical archaeology, ancient Jewish history and biblical studies.
This English translation of the second edition of Christian Frevel’s essential textbook Geschichte Israels (Kohlhammer, 2018) covers the history of Israel from its beginnings until the Bar Kokhba revolt (132–135 CE). Frevel draws on archaeological evidence, inscriptions and monuments, as well as the Bible to sketch a picture of the history of ancient Israel within the context of the southern Levant that is sometimes familiar but often fresh and unexpected. Frevel has updated the second German edition with the most recent research of archaeologists and biblical scholars, including those based in Europe. Tables of rulers, a glossary, a timeline of the ancient Near East, and resources arranged by subject make this book an accessible, essential textbook for students and scholars alike.
This study brings together literary and philological criticism to offer a reading of Job 28 as poetry. The heart of the study consists of two major sections. The first is an interpretation of the poem against the heroic deeds of ancient kings described in Mesopotamian royal narratives, especially the Gilgamesh epic. The second is a thorough philological and textual commentary which employs an aesthetic rationale for restoring the text of the poem as a work of art. The study reveals a multileveled masterpiece whose complexity impacts how one reads Job 28 as poetry and theology.
Sensual yet pre-eminently functional, food is of intrinsic interest to us all. This exciting new work by a leading authority explores food and related concepts in the Greek and Roman worlds. In entries ranging from a few lines to a couple of pages, Andrew Dalby describes individual foodstuffs (such as catfish, gazelle, peaches and parsley), utensils, ancient writers on food, and a vast range of other topics, drawn from classical literature, history and archaeology, as well as looking at the approaches of modern scholars. Approachable, reliable and fun, this A-to-Z explains and clarifies a subject that crops up in numerous classical sources, from plays to histories and beyond. It also gives references to useful primary and secondary reading. It will be an invaluable companion for students, academics and gastronomes alike.
First published in 2013. The study of food in the Hebrew Bible and Syro-Palestinian archaeology has tended to focus on kosher dietary laws, the sacrificial system, and feasting in elite contexts. More everyday ritual and practice - the preparation of food in the home - has been overlooked. Food in Ancient Judah explores both the archaeological remains and ancient Near Eastern sources to see what they reveal about the domestic gastronomical daily life of ancient Judahites within the narratives of the Hebrew Bible. Beyond the findings, the methodology of the study is in itself innovative. Biblical passages that deal with domestic food preparation are translated and analysed. Archaeological findings and relevant secondary resources are then applied to inform these passages. Food in Ancient Judah reflects both the shift towards the study of everyday life in biblical studies and archaeology and the huge expansion of interest in food history - it will be of interest to scholars in all these fields
This volume offers a groundbreaking reassessment of the destructions that allegedly occurred at sites across the eastern Mediterranean at the end of the Late Bronze Age, and challenges the numerous grand theories that have been put forward to account for them. The author demonstrates that earthquakes, warfare, and destruction all played a much smaller role in this period than the literature of the past several decades has claimed, and makes the case that the end of the Late Bronze Age was a far less dramatic and more protracted process than is generally believed.
This study analyzes several passages in the Former Prophets (2 Sam 19:12-44; 2 Kgs 2:1-18; Judg 8:4-28) from a literary perspective, and argues that the text presents Transjordan as liminal in Israel's history, a place from which Israel's leaders return with inaugurated or renewed authority. It then traces the redactional development of Samuel-Kings that led to this literary symbolism, and proposes a hypothesis of continual updating and combination of texts, beginning early in Israel's monarchy and continuing until the final formation of the Deuteronomistic History. Several source documents may be isolated, including three narratives of Saul's rise, two distinct histories of David's rise, an...
The focus of this book is on temples in the Southern Levant during the Iron Age (ca. 1200-600 BC) and their transformations. In order to capture the long-term context, some significant sites with temples from the Late Bronze Age are also presented and discussed. The author traces both material culture related to the temples and the way in which the same themes are treated in Old Testament texts concentrated primarily on Israel and Judah. From the analysis of these texts, he deduces a threefold transformation of the form of memory in relation to the temples and the cult. The first concerns a contrastive reshaping (Philistia and other neighbouring political entities), the second an external (Israel) and the third an internal (Judah) silencing of the actual form of religious practice in the Iron Age.
For decades, the agricultural settlements of Israel's arid Central Arabah prided themselves on their labor-Zionist commitment to abstaining from hiring outside labor. But beginning in the late 1980s, the region's agrarian economy was rapidly transformed by the removal of state protections, a shift to export-oriented monoculture, and an influx of disenfranchised, ill-paid migrants from northeast Thailand (Isaan). Capitalist Colonial, Matan Kaminer's ethnography of the region and its people, argues that the paid and unpaid labor of Thai migrants has been essential to resolving the clashing demands of the bottom line and Zionist ideology here as elsewhere in Israel's farm sector. Kaminer's acco...