Behind the Scenes of the Old Testament: Cultural, Social, and Historical Contexts

I'll start by saying -- I found this book an utter delight. After reading this, I have purchased three more copies for others. I gave one to a seminarian at our church, and another to a fairly secular friend with an archeology Ph.D. I've read this cover to cover, and am picking back through articles I found especially interesting.That said, for me, this book was not without flaws.For one -- dense, inaccessible, at certain points. While not an Ancient Near East or Hebrew Scriptures specialist, I'm pretty familiar with the subject matter. I have two seminary masters degrees (Princeton -- heavy on biblical criticism) and a doctorate in theology, I am a full-time senior pastor writing sermons each week, am a published author of books on biblical topics, and I have enjoyed the Biblical Archeology Review as a subscriber for 25 consecutive years. I mention all that just to stress -- I'm way better equipped than most potential readers apart from the handful of OT doctoral students and professors. And yet I really found some of these articles pretty slow going. Several of the chapters assumed a pretty advanced familiarity with pretty obscure material. Some were fairly technical.Even in chapters written in a more accessible level and with a more engaging tone, often technical terms were left undefined. For example, it would have been helpful to a wider range of readers if the authors (or editors!) had added dates when citing such-and-such was during Iron Age II, etc. Or when mentioning Judean olive oil was found in Ashkelon, perhaps location remarks in parentheses would have helped.On a related note -- there were very few maps (almost every chapter could have greatly benefitted from them), and all black and white.A short glossary of technical terms (architectural features, archeological terms, etc.) would have been immensely helpful.The bios of the contributors could have included which chapters they wrote.As a published author, I know each of these suggestions would have made a rather thick book even thicker (and more expensive). But if given the choice, I'd sacrifice a couple of the chapters in exchange for more clarity and user friendliness in the remaining ones.In summary, I think this book would not work well as a textbook in a graduate level seminary or Old Testament studies class, except perhaps on the doctoral level. It is, however, a wonderful resource for the informed and motivated reader, and would make an excellent reference tool on most of the many topics it covers (what does it NOT cover in OT background?)

This is a book that should on the shelf of every one who reads the Bible, ancient history, or history in general. All our history in the West, and in some aspects the East, can be traced to the great empires of the ancient Mideast. The Bible comes out of the that era, and the individual who reads the Bible is getting a great story, but only a part of the story. The science of archaeology and ancient history has helped fill in many of the blanks and things that aren't mentioned in the Bible, but were mentioned in ancient historical documents of the Egyptians, the Babylonians, Assyrians and other ancient writings. This book brings all the history available together to provide more depth and understand of what we are able to read in the Bible. Very helpful and interesting. great table of contents, and good notes.

There is some useful info in here, eg, the overview of the geography. There is also a lot of assuming by the specialist that your are familiar with the technical terms of their discipline. There is a good deal of 'minimalism and skepticism in regard to the accuracy of the biblical record. The chapters on archeology continue to prove my belief that the discipline is a wax nose - the specialist, whatever his or her presuppositions, can make the findings say whatever he is predisposed to think they say. Overall, useful to a degree, to be used with care by the Bible believer, of little to moderate value to the laymen looking for practical background info on the culture and milieu of the Bible, not worth the price to be sure. Going to try Borowski's Daily Life in Bible Times

We are thousands of years removed from the time the bible was written and it is easy to misinterpret text without understanding what was normal for the periods that the Bible describes. This text provides a simple summary of what a was normal for Biblical Writers. I found it fascinating and quite readable. What amazes me was how different vthe ancient Judahean religion was from the dozens of other kingdoms and Empires around them.

Greer, Hilber and Walton have brought together a diverse group of authors in order to bring to life the world in which the Old Testament was composed and lived. Divided into ten sections, along with a very brief (3 pages) introduction and much longer bibliography, Scripture, ancient works and author reference (101 pages), this work is divided into three parts of the “drama” that is the Old Testament, which is then further divided into ten sections, and then further into sixty-six chapters. The first part describes the “elements” (geography, archaeology, ancient Near Eastern literature and ancient Near Eastern iconography); the second describes the “acts and scenes” (approaches to the historical contexts); and the third third, taking up almost half of the book, walks through the “themes” of the drama (Israelite religion, family networks, economic contexts and social organisation). The dramatic approach to the naming of parts and sections is cute and sets the scene, but while it doesn’t necessarily add too much, it doesn’t detract and helps the reader mentally categorise the parts.This book is intended as a reference work, where students would be directed to read one or several chapters on a particular topic from a specialist in that area. Occasionally this means some authors will assume too much (for instance the dating of archaeological periods) while others will dumb things down too much. Also evident is a lack of communication between the authors of related chapters, where advice of caution from one author will be ignored by another who goes out on a limb. One example of this is chapter 42 (Walton: “Interactions in the Ancient Cognitive Environment”) where, of the multiple models of interaction between the ancient Near Eastern texts and biblical authors, “diffusion” is the wisest and most cautious approach. Contrast this with the following chapter (Matthew J. Lynch: “Monotheism in Ancient Israel”) where the author posits a very definite polemical relationship despite the caution suggested in the previous chapter.There were some sections which could have been arranged differently, or parts of a chapter later in a section which would have fitted better in an earlier chapter in a separate introductory chapter. For example, the closest we have to a diagram of the “traditional four-room house” comes finally in chapter 58 (a diagram of a five-room house), even though a working knowledge of such a dwelling is assumed knowledge all the way back in chapter 9. Similarly the working definition of the ranges for the bronze and iron ages come in chapter 8 but are assumed in chapters 5–7. So too the description of the family tree of Semitic languages comes in chapter 16 but should probably have preceded chapter 12 for context.One chapter which really needed to be in “Section V: Acts: Integrated Approaches to Broad Historical Contexts,” was inexplicably absent. The section moved dutifully through the Ancestral Period (ch 23), the Egyptian Sojourn and the Exodus (ch 24), through to the Achaemenid Persian Empire in the West and Persian-Period Yehud (ch 30) but then skips the entire Greek period, jumping straight to the Maccabean Revolt and Hasmonean Statecraft (ch 31). Although Alexander the Great and Hellenism (ch 41) does get a mention in “Section VI: Scenes: Integrated Approaches to Event-Based Historical Contexts,” the approach there is from a different perspective and is really an inexplicable absence in this otherwise comprehensive book. A discussion of the Seleucid and Ptolemaic empires and their impact on the Levant is of inestimable importance and its absence is perhaps the book’s most glaring flaw.The best chapters included those which provided clear overviews (in particular, ch’s 1, 5, 11, 19, 42, 53), while the final three chapters (“Law and Legal Systems in Ancient Israel,” “Wisdom Traditions in Ancient Israel,” “Warfare in the World of the Bible”) were perhaps the most engaging and finished the book well. These, among with multiple others, will be perfect set-reading for students as they are taught to approach the Old Testament in its world and with an increased awareness of all that is going on behind the scenes.

Such a valuable resource for my theological studies. I'm impressed by the variety of authors who participated in the ouvrage. You can't go wrong with this one.

Ben documentato e stimolante nella presentazione degli argomenti