The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Ancient Israel

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.