Customer Reviews

Families in Ancient Israel (Family, Religion, and Culture)

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This is the book for anyone who has ever wondered about the political homage paid to the "biblical family" in recent years. Profiting from recent breakthroughs in the study of Hebrew scriptures, this book, one of a series produced by the Religion, Culture, and Family Project of the University of Chicago Divinity School, argues that the family in ancient Israel should be understood as a complicated, multi-generational "household" system organized around a core "covenant" between father and mother, parents and children, households and land, and families and God. The ancient Hebrew family was hardly the "nuclear family" of today. Codes of hospitality insured that even outsiders and marginal members of the community were included when necessary. Indeed, the ancient Hebrew family resembled more the "village" concept, not only for raising children, but for building up community. Religious ideas in ancient Israel gave order and significance to the practical realities of family life, and were closely connected to the realities of household labor, land, wealth, procreation, inheritance, economic profit and loss, sickness, and dependency. This book is the only recent comprehensive review in the English language of the family in ancient Israel. It is well worth reading for anyone who wants to understand the biblical families of the Old Testament.

This collection of papers on the Family in ancient Israel covers the various periods of Israelite history. From pre-monarchy to second temple Judaism the chapters discuss many aspects of the family. The various authors discuss the members of the family, divorce, inheritance, and other issues that families of old as well as modern families experience. The ancient Israelite family was similar to those in the ancient Near East in their work ethic, structure, and culture.

This book helps the American family redefine their concept of family, extended family, and household as a source of strength for their cultural development.

This book's first strength is that it is divided into sections which describe the family based upon each scholar's area of expertise. So, Meyers takes the archaeological discussion, and Perdue takes the theological discussion.

Meyers does a good job of describing the way in which rural settings differ from urban settings in terms of the family. She uses inductive logic to demonstrate her position about the family in Ancient Israel. Meyers describes hard evidence in the material culture, such as the shape and design of houses, and then makes statements about the amount of occupants based on population densities in other rural

villages in the world. So, her numbers aren't hard facts, but they are probably excellent ideas.

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I am very satisfied with the book I ordered and the expedience of the shipment.