The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Ancient Israel

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.

Notes on Contributors ixAcknowledgments xvEditor's Introduction 1Part I Methodology: Questions, Concepts, Approaches, and Tools 9A Contextualizing Israelite Culture1 Archaeology:What It Can Teach Us 13Elizabeth Bloch-Smith2 Israel in Its Neighboring Context 28Song-Mi Suzie Park3 Ancient Egypt and Israel: History, Culture, and the Biblical Text 47John R. Huddlestun4 Text and Context in Biblical Studies: A Brief History of a Troubled Relationship 67Steven WeitzmanB Hebrew Bible and Tracking Israelite History and Culture5 Folklore and Israelite Tradition: Appreciation and Application 87Susan Niditch6 The Formation of the Hebrew Bible: Sources, Compositional Layers, and Other Revisions 103David M. Carr7 Linguistics and the Dating of Biblical Literature 118Ohad Cohen8 Epigraphy:Writing Culture in the Iron Age Levant 131Christopher A. RollstonPart II Political History 151A Origins9 The Emergence of Israel and Theories of Ethnogenesis 155Avraham FaustB Monarchic Period10 The Early Monarchy and the Stories of Saul, David, and Solomon 177Brad E. Kelle11 The Divided Monarchy 197J. J.M. RobertsC Postmonarchic Period: In the Land and Diaspora12 (Re)Defining "Israel": The Legacy of the Neo-Babylonian and Persian Periods 215Charles E. Carter13 The Hellenistic Period 241Matthew J. GoffPart III Themes in Israelite Culture 257A God and Gods14 The Gods of Israel in Comparative Ancient Near Eastern Context 261Neal Walls15 Monotheism and the Redefinition of Divinity in Ancient Israel 278Mark S. SmithB Mediation: Gods and Humans16 Priests and Ritual 297S. A. Geller17 Prophecy 317Robert R.Wilson18 Apocalypticism 333John J. CollinsC Social Interaction19 Religion at Home: The Materiality of Practice 347Francesca Stavrakopoulou20 Education and the Transmission of Tradition 366Raymond F. Person, Jr21 Kinship, Community, and Society 379T. M. Lemos22 Law and Legal Literature 396Bernard M. Levinson and Tina M. Sherman23 Women's Lives 415Carol Meyers24 Economy and Society in Iron Age Israel and Judah: An Archaeological Perspective 433J. David SchloenD Artistic Expression25 Verbal Art and Literary Sensibilities in Ancient Near Eastern Context 457Edward L. Greenstein26 The Flowering of Literature in the Persian Period: The Writings/Ketuvim 476Tamara Cohn Eskenazi27 Hellenistic Period Literature in the Land of Israel 493Benjamin G.Wright III28 Art and Iconography: Representing Yahwistic Divinity 510Theodore J. LewisIndex 535

This is a tremendous collection of essays that will serve as an updated handbook for students and scholars alike who wish to gain entry into a particular aspect or period of ancient Israelite history.Cindy Chapman, Oberlin CollegeI had begun to think that there were already too many handbooks, dictionaries, and encyclopedias of the biblical world on the market for yet another one. But reading through this new volume, superbly planned and organized by Susan Niditch, showed me how wrong I was. There is frankly nothing quite like it. In an exceptionally comprehensive way, it explores what ancient Israel was all about: the varied aspects of its culture and society, the multiple historical contexts in which it existed, and the range of perspectives, literary, archaeological, religious, social scientific, from which modern interpreters must understand it. The volume, thus, is not only a survey of the facts and features of Israel's history and culture, as is typical of many handbooks. Even more, it is a searching inquiry into how we know what we know or think we know: what are the major issues of interpretation and how to evaluate them. Editor Niditch has not been afraid to encourage differing points of view on these issues and the evidence for them from her contributors, which her cross-referencing throughout helps the reader to appreciate. And the contributors - a well-respected international group from junior to senior scholars - have not been afraid to be provocative in what they have to say. Unquestionably, this volume will become a cornerstone for all future work on the study of ancient Israel.Peter Machinist, Harvard University