Archaeology And Ancient Israelite Religion

Israelite religions have always fascinated scholars. Initial studies used the Bible as their main source of information and attempted to read it critically in order to learn about the religion of ancient Israel. With the advent of modern research in the Near East, more and more information on other Ancient Near Eastern religions was accumulated and initially used to illuminate Israelite religious practices as described in the Bible, but gradually led to challenging some of the accepted truisms. The new information was collected mainly through archaeological excavations, and archaeology had gradually become a major player in the study of ancient Israelite religion(s) and religious practices. The massive amount of information on the various subthemes related to Israelite religions, the shifting trends in scholarship, the multiplicity of approaches, and the interdisciplinary nature of the field means that no single scholar can master all the data today. Indeed, there is currently no comprehensive and updated book that covers all or even most aspects pertaining to Israelite religion(s). This volume is a partial attempt to fill some of this lacuna. The volume includes a number of broad, summarizing studies, presenting readers with the up-to-date state of the research on a number of important issues, from Solomon's temple to broader studies of the loci of cultic activity in ancient Israel through to analysis of the difference between the "official" and "popular" expression of religion, the place of women in Israelite cult(s), similarities and differences between the religious practices in Israel and Judah and those of other Iron Age religions, and the religion of some of Israel's neighbors to the role of zooarchaeology in the study of religion, ancient Israelite festivals, and more.

This richly illustrated, non-technical reconstruction of "folk religion" in ancient Israel is based largely on recent archaeological evidence, but also incorporates biblical texts where possible.

Thirteen essays from an ASOR symposium on the relationship among archaeology, text and our understanding of ancient Israelite religion. Contributors include: J. Z. Smith, W. G. Dever, Z. Zevit, K. van der Toorn, J. M. Sasson, E. Bloch-Smith, S. Gitin, B. A. Levine, W. T. Pitard, T. J. Lewis, and B. M. Gittlen.

Annotation This book discusses the role of religion in Canaanite and Israelite society, from the Middle Bronze Age through the Israelite Divided Monarchy (2000-587 BC). It contains an extensive archaeological study of all known Middle Bronze through Iron Age temples, sanctuaries, and open-air shrines, organized by period and geographic region. Social science and textually based analyses of sacrifice in antiquity reveal the many ways in which religion was related to social structure, and the author emphasizes the ways in which social, economic and political relationships determined - and were shaped by - forms of religious organization.

Archaeological excavation in the Holy Land has exploded with the resurgence of interest in the historical roots of the biblical Israelites. Israelite Religions offers Bible students and interested lay leaders a survey of the major issues and approaches that constitute the study of ancient Israelite religion. Unique among other books on the subject, Israelite Religions takes the Bible seriously as a historical source, balancing the biblical material with relevant evidence from archaeological finds.

In this illustrated book, some of Israel's foremost archaeologists present a survey of early life in the land of the Bible, from the Neolithic era (eighth millenium BC) to the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the First Temple in 586 BC. Each chapter covers a particular era and includes a bibliography.

"In this book William Dever addresses the question that must guide every good historian of ancient Israel: What was life really like in those days? Writing as an expert archaeologist who is also a secular humanist, Dever relies on archaeological data, over and above the Hebrew Bible, for primary source material. He focuses on the lives of ordinary people in the eighth century B.C.E. - not kings, priests, or prophets - people who left behind rich troves of archaeological information but who are practically invisible in "typical" histories of ancient Israel."--Résumé de l'éditeur.