The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Ancient Israel - (Wiley Blackwell Companions to Religion) by Susan Niditch (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

The Companion to Ancient Israel offers an innovative overview of ancient Israelite culture and history, richly informed by a variety of approaches and fields. Distinguished scholars provide original contributions that explore the tradition in all its complexity, multiplicity and diversity.

• A methodologically sophisticated overview of ancient Israelite culture that provides insights into political and social history, culture, and methodology
• Explores what we can say about the cultures and history of the people of Israel and Judah, but also investigates how we know what we know
• Presents fresh insights, richly informed by a variety of approaches and fields
• Delves into 'religion as lived, ' an approach that asks about the everyday lives of ordinary people and the material cultures that they construct and experience
• Each essay is an original contribution to the subject

From the Back Cover

The Companion to Ancient Israel offers an unparalleled exploration of the political, social and cultural world of ancient Israel. Methodologically sophisticated, it provides an overview of ancient Israelite culture, richly informed by a variety of approaches and fields. These include the history of religion with its interests in worldviews, symbol systems, paradigms, and the benefits of comparative, cross-cultural study; the study of 'religion as lived, ' an approach that examines the everyday lives of ordinary people and the material cultures that they construct and experience; and cultural studies with its interdisciplinary emphases and methodological questions about the academic assumptions that scholars make.

The Companion has been divided into three sections, throughout which a distinguished and international group of scholars have delivered a series of fresh contributions: the first section deals in innovative ways with the methodological assumptions and techniques that allow for the study of ancient Israel; the second provides an overview of social and political history, and the third section focuses on critical aspects of culture. The essays not only explore what we can say about the cultures and history of the people of Israel and Judah but also asks how we know what we know, in a style that is makes it of real interest to scholars but also fully accessible to non-experts.

Review Quotes

"I would, however, recommend this book to university libraries catering for courses in ancient history, historical theology, archaeology or Middle Eastern studies, as a balanced and scholarly guide to the current state of knowledge."
--Martin Guha, Reference Reviews, Volume 30, Number 7, 2016

About the Author

Susan Niditch is Samuel Green Professor of Religion at Amherst College. Her research and teaching interests include the study of ancient Israelite literature from the perspectives of the comparative and interdisciplinary fields of folklore and oral studies; biblical ethics with special interests in war, gender, and the body; the reception history of the Bible; and study of the rich symbolic media of biblical ritual texts. Recent publications include Judges: A Commentary (2008)and My Brother Esau Is a Hairy Man: Hair and Identity in Ancient Israel (2008). Her current project deals with personal religion and late biblical literature.