In this impressive volume, leading scholars offer compelling glimpses into the biblical world, the world in which prophets, poets, sages, and historians created one of our most important texts--the Bible.

For more than a century, archaeologists have been unearthing the tombs, temples, texts, and artifacts of the ancient Near East and the Mediterranean world. Using new approaches, contemporary scholars have begun to synthesize this material with the biblical traditions. The Oxford History of the Biblical World incorporates the best of this scholarship, and in chronologically ordered chapters presents the reader with a readable and integrated study of the history, art, architecture, languages, literatures, and religion of biblical Israel and early Judaism and Christianity in their larger cultural contexts. The authors also examine such issues as the roles of women, the tensions between urban and rural settings, royal and kinship social structures, and official and popular religions of the region.

Understanding the biblical world is a vital part of understanding the Bible. Broad, authoritative, and engaging, The Oxford History of the Biblical World will illuminate for any reader the ancient world from which the Bible emerged.

"The Oxford History of the Biblical World rewards careful study and casual browsing. For those willing to open their minds to the evidence and nuanced argument about the origins of faiths that have shaped our world, it is a worthy investment of time in the study of the timeless."--David Lauter, L.A. Times (on the hardcover edition)

"A judicious and well-illustrated survey of the entire scope of Biblical history."--The Providence Sunday Journal

The best of archeological and biblical traditions are brought together in chronological chapters to present a clear and integrated study of the history, art, architecture, languages, literature, and religions of biblical Israel and early Judaism and Christianity in their larger cultural contexts.

Michael D. Coogan, editor of the New Oxford Annotated Bible, 3rd ed. and co-editor of the Oxford Companion to the Bible, is currently director of publications for the Harvard Semitic Museum and Professor of Religious Studies at Stonehill College in Easton, Massachusetts.

List of Maps

Preface

Prologue: In the Beginning: The Earliest History, Michael D. Coogan

1. Before Israel: Syria-Palestine in the Bronze Age, Wayne T. Pitard

2. Bitter Lives: Israel in and out of Egypt, Carol A. Redmount

3. Forging an Identity: The Emergence of Ancient Israel, Lawrence E. Stager

4. "There Was No King in Israel": The Era of the Judges, Jo Ann Hackett

5. Kinship and Kingship: The Early Monarchy, Carol Meyers

6. A Land Divided: Judah and Israel from the Death of Solomon to the Fall of Samaria, Edward F. Campbell Jr.

7. Into Exile: From the Assyrian Conquest of Israel to the Fall of Babylon, Mordechai Cogan

8. Israel among the Nations: The Persian Period, Mary Joan Winn Leith

9. Between Alexandria and Antioch: Jews and Judaism in the Hellenistic Period, Leonard J. Greenspoon

10. Visions of Kingdoms: From Pompey to the First Jewish Revolt, Amy-Jill Levine

11. Churches in Context: The Jesus Movement in the Roman World, Daniel N. Schowalter

Epilogue: Transitions and Trajectories: Jews and Christians in the Roman Empire, Barbara Geller