Francesca Stavrakopoulou is Senior Lecturer in Hebrew Bible at the University of Exeter, UK. Her research focuses on ancient Israelite religion, Judahite kingship, and history and ideology in the Hebrew Bible. She is the author of King Manasseh and Child Sacrifice: Biblical Distortions of Historical Realities (2004).

• PrefaceAcknowledgments Abbreviations 1. Bones, burials and boundaries 1.1 Placing the dead 1.2 Venerating the dead 1.3 Centralizing the dead 2. Abraham at Machpelah 2.1 Marking Machpelah 2.2 (Ac)claiming Abraham 3. Moses at the edge 3.1 Moses' memorial 3.2 Torah memorialized 4. Contesting Bethel4.1 Displacing the dead 4.2 Ancestral advocacy 5. Claiming Jerusalem 5.1 City of the Dead5.2 Entombing temple 6. The creation of a nation 6.1 Remapping the land 6.2 Re-placing the dead Bibliography Index of Ancient Sources Index of Authors Index of Subjects

Land of Our Fathers thoughtfully and creatively explores the ways in which fundamental connections between the ancestors and the land mapped culture in ancient Israel. Francesca Stavrakopoulou's work is interdisciplinary and methodologically sophisticated, drawing upon cultural anthropology and other fields to study "the territorialism of the dead." The author's analysis not only points to pan-Israelite patterns of culture but also to variations and developments in attitudes to the dead that reflect and respond to social, political, and historical dynamics. I look forward to sharing this important case study in the history of religion with my students in courses that deal with ancient Israelite and comparative religions.