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

"I would, however, recommend this book to university libraries catering for courses in ancient history, historical theology, archaeology or Middle Eastern studies, as a balanced and scholarly guide to the current state of knowledge."—Martin Guha, Reference Reviews, Volume 30, Number 7, 2016