Bedouin Culture in the Biblical Home

2018 ◽  
pp. 34-68
Author(s):  
Clinton Bailey
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Social Behaviour ◽  
Desert Plants ◽  
Unleavened Bread

In describing its main early characters as nomads, the Hebrew Bible provides us with features of their material culture and social behaviour that correspond closely to facets of pre-modern Bedouin life in the same areas: the Negev, Sinai, and the hills and deserts of eastern Canaan. These parallels are particularly evident when seen against the reasons that engendered them, explaining, for example, why the early Israelites dwelled in tents during their migrations and thatched booths at the end of summer, ate unleavened bread, quail, and manna, gave names to desert places, utilized stars in the desert sky and desert plants, and extended hospitality to travellers. The patriarch Abraham’s reception of the angels disguised as men who had come to announce the forthcoming motherhood of his barren wife, Sarah, for example, recalls Bedouin hospitality in all its detail.

Bedouin Culture in the Bible

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clinton Bailey
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Social Values ◽  
Oral Traditions ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Unleavened Bread ◽  
The Common ◽  
Almost All ◽  
Common Logic

Bedouin culture, the culture of desert-dwelling nomads, has existed for 4,500 years, including the era when the texts of the Hebrew Bible, or Old Testament, were composed. It is thus a good context for understanding much of the Bible’s often ambivalent content regarding economics, material culture, social values, social organization, legal practices, religious behavior, and oral traditions. The abundant and varied Bedouin materials in this book constitute a cultural document that supplements materials learned from other cultures of the Ancient Near East about the Bible. The plenitude of Bedouin materials in the Hebrew Bible, the common logic between Bedouin and biblical experiences, and the ancient proximity of Bedouin to what the Bible cites as Israelite abodes, ensure that the origin of almost all the biblical references presented in this book stemmed from Bedouin rather than other ancient cultures. This book, in detailing the profusion of Bedouin culture in the Bible, goes far toward establishing that the ancient Israelites did have a nomadic background, as they are portrayed. Through the prism of Bedouin culture we also gain fresh insights into our customary perspectives on prominent aspects of Judaism and their biblical origins, such as the Israelite god Yahweh (enunciated in Judaism as “Adonai”), the attribute of this god as unseen, the original significance of circumcision, the eating of unleavened bread during Passover, the dwelling in thatched booths during the Feast of Tabernacles, and the Jewish prohibitions against eating pork and other forbidden foods.

Material Culture and Making Visible: On the Portrayal of Philistine Gath in the Book of Samuel

2018 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-27
Author(s):  
Daniel Pioske
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Literary Work ◽  
Early Iron Age ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
The Past ◽  
Book Of Samuel

Over the past twenty years our understanding of Philistine Gath's history (Tell es-Safl) has been transformed by what has been revealed through the site's early Iron Age remains. But what has received much less attention is the effect these ruins have on how we read references to the location within the Hebrew Bible. The intent of this study is to draw on the archaeological evidence produced from Tell es-Safl as an interpretive lens by which to consider the biblical portrayal of the site rendered in the book of Samuel, where the material traces of more amicable associations between Gath and highland populations invite us to reconsider the city's depiction in this ancient literary work.

Memory and its Materiality: The Case of Early Iron Age Khirbet Qeiyafa and Jerusalem

2015 ◽  
Vol 127 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel D. Pioske
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Early Iron Age ◽  
Time Period ◽  
Ancient Israel ◽  
Over Time

In den wenigen Jahren seitdem Ausgrabungen in Khirbet Qeiyafa durchgeführt wurden, haben sich schon einige wichtige Studien mit seiner beeindruckenden Hinterlassenschaft aus der frühen Eisenzeit beschäftigt. Was bislang unberücksichtigt blieb, sind die Folgerungen der Befunde für die Schriftkultur, die für das Bild dieser Periode in der Hebräischen Bibel verantwortlich ist. Die Absicht dieser Studie besteht darin, das literarische Schicksal von Khirbet Qeiyafa mit dem des frühen und späten eisenzeitlichen Jerusalem zu vergleichen und zu ermitteln, was das Nichtvorkommen bzw. Vorkommen dieser Standorte in der Hebräischen Bibel über die Quellen der biblischen Verfasser aussagt, über die sie im 11. und 10. Jh. v. Chr. verfügten. Zugleich wird gefragt, welchen Beitrag Ort und Erinnerung bei der Überlieferung dieser Geschichten im antiken Israel und Juda hatten.In the few short years since excavations were first carried out at Khirbet Qeiyafa a number of important studies have been devoted to its impressive early Iron Age remains. Yet what has not been pursued within these discussions are the implications of the settlement’s material culture for our understanding of the scribal cultures responsible for the portrayal of this time period in the Hebrew Bible. In comparing the literary fate of Khirbet Qeiyafa with that of the contemporaneous site of late Iron I/early Iron IIA Jerusalem, the intent of this study is to examine what the absence and presence of these two sites in the Hebrew Bible indicates about the sources biblical scribes possessed about the 11th–10th centuries BCE, and how place and memory contributed to the transmission of these stories over time in ancient Israel and Judah.Dans les quelques années qui ont suivi les fouilles à Khirbet Qeiyafa, un bon nombre d’études conséquentes ont été consacrées à ses impressionnants vestiges du début de l’âge de Fer. Cependant, ce qui n’a pas été développé dans ces discussions, ce sont les implications de la culture matérielle de ce site pour notre compréhension milieux de scribes responsables de la description de cette période dans la Bible hébraïque. En comparant le destin littéraire de Khirbet Qeiyafa avec celui de Jérusalem, site contemporain de la fin du Fer I et du début du Fer IIA, cette étude cherche à examiner ce que la présence et l’absence de ces deux sites dans la Bible hébraïque indiquent au sujet des sources que les scribes bibliques possédaient sur les 11–10

Midian

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juan Manuel Tebes
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Geographical Location ◽  
Gulf Of Aqaba ◽  
Southern Levant ◽  
Biblical Scholarship ◽  
Total Lack ◽  
Early Islamic ◽  
Archaeological Excavations ◽  
Written Sources

Midian was an ancient region located in northwestern Arabia. Compared with other peoples of the ancient Near East, knowledge about Midian and the Midianites is limited and restricted to a few and relatively late written sources, particularly the Hebrew Bible. The exact geographical location of the Midianites is unknown, and although the Midianite “heartland” is traditionally situated east of the Gulf of Aqaba, in some biblical texts the Midianites appear to be present in Transjordan and even invading Canaan itself. The chronological dating is also imprecise, but because biblical references to the Midianites concentrate in the Exodus and Wilderness wandering stories and are not mentioned by name in Neo-Assyrian and later Mesopotamian sources, they are usually considered to be one of the earliest Arabian tribal groups, traditionally dated between the late 2nd and early 1st millennia bce—the Late Bronze and Early Iron Ages of the Syro-Palestinian archaeological periodization. In the Hebrew Bible there is an ambivalent approach toward the Midianites. While in the Patriarchal and especially in the Exodus/Wilderness traditions they are portrayed as close to the Israelites—even to the extent that according to mainstream biblical scholarship worship of Yahweh originated in Midian, this did not preclude military clashes between Israelites and Midianites at the end of the Wilderness wanderings and during the period of the Judges. Later classical, Jewish, and Christian writers located Midian east of the Gulf of Aqaba, connecting the region with the biblical theophany at Mt. Sinai. The Quranic and early Islamic traditions took the Jewish/Christian allusions to Midian and the Moses story, expanding them with ancient Arabian lore. Attempts to define a Midianite material culture in northwestern Arabia and southern Levant through archaeology remain a thorny issue because of the almost total lack of local written sources naming Midian and the few archaeological excavations carried out in northern Saudi Arabia.

Approaching Medieval Sacrality

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. A. Hall
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Art History ◽  
Social Behaviour ◽  
Medieval Period ◽  
Everyday Lives ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Holistic Interpretation

Creating, inviting, and repurposing sacrality was a fundamental quest of social behaviour in the medieval period. From the major shrines of cathedrals down to the portable sanctity of amulets, the pursuit of sacredness affected the everyday lives of Christian believers, helping to fashion memories and create heirlooms. Drawing on history, art history, anthropology, and folklore under the broad umbrella of material culture, this contribution takes a socially informed and trans-disciplinary approach to archaeology and seeks a holistic interpretation of the medieval past, one that does not neglect the intangible. This contribution seeks to underline the value of recent, new perspectives in this area and to broaden their application. Three overlapping themes are considered: relics, places, and mobility.

Once a Child, Always a Child

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shawn W. Flynn
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Social Promotion ◽  
Biblical Text ◽  
Entire Study ◽  
Final Reading ◽  
Domestic Cult

This final chapter is both a conclusion and a brief consideration of one final category in a child’s life. It offers an overview of how children likely functioned in the domestic cult, and thus explores the child’s ongoing role as “child” even into adulthood. This is reinforced by a discussion of delinquency and the consequences for not upholding the domestic context as the child faced growing responsibility. The logic of the child’s domestic-cultic value in the pre-birth stage and as expressed in the material culture of childhood burials is extended to the expectations placed on them to promote the domestic cult. The role of children in the domestic cult forms the basis for one final application of this lens to the biblical text, specifically Ezekiel 16. This final reading leverages various aspects of the entire study, showing that the Hebrew Bible uses the child’s value as a social promotion of YHWH to the domestic cult.

Introduction

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Laura Quick
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The World ◽  
The One

This is a book about clothing and adornment in the world that gave rise to the Hebrew Bible. On the one hand, then, this is a book concerned with material culture: with the various garments and items of adornment that we read about in the pages of the Bible, or with the material remains of objects such as jewellery and cosmetic cases that have been recovered from the ancient Levant....

Dress, Adornment, and the Body in the Hebrew Bible

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Quick
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Social Values ◽  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Effective Means ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Self ◽  
Ancient World ◽  
The Social ◽  
Body Adornment

Dress, Adornment and the Body in the Hebrew Bible is the first monograph to treat dress and adornment in biblical literature in the English language. Beyond merely filling a gap in scholarship, the book moves beyond a description of these aspects of ancient life to encompass notions of interpersonal relationships and personhood that underpin practices of dress and adornment. I explore the ramifications of body adornment in the biblical world, informed by a methodologically plural approach incorporating material culture alongside philology, textual exegesis, comparative evidence, and sociological models. Drawing upon and synthesizing insights from material culture and texts from across the eastern Mediterranean, I reconstruct the social meanings attached to the dressed body in biblical texts. I show how body adornment can deepen our understanding of attitudes towards the self in the ancient world. In my reconstruction of ancient performances of the self, the body serves as the observed centre in which complex ideologies of identity, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and social status are articulated. The adornment of the body is thus an effective means of non-verbal communication, but one which at the same time is controlled by and dictated through normative social values. Exploring dress, adornment, and the body can therefore open up hitherto unexplored perspectives on these social values in the ancient world, an essential missing piece in understanding the social and cultural world which shaped the Hebrew Bible.

Iconography and the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryan P. Bonfiglio
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Subject Matter ◽  
Primary Source ◽  
Visual Image ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Ancient World ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
Israelite Religion

With respect to the study of the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible, the term iconography refers to the visual images produced in the ancient Near Eastern world. Various types of ancient Near East (ANE) images are attested in the archaeological record, including monumental reliefs, freestanding statues and figurines, picture-bearing coins and ivories, terracottas, amulets, and seals and their impressions. These artistic materials, which constitute an important component of ancient material culture more broadly, display a wide variety of subject matter, ranging from simple depictions of human figures, deities, divine symbols, animals, and vegetation to more complex visual portrayals of worship scenes, battles, and tribute processions. Despite the presence of legal texts in the Old Testament (OT) that ban the production of divine images, ancient Israel produced, imported, and circulated a wealth of images, mostly in the form of seals, scarabs, and amulets. The study of ANE iconography focuses primarily on the subject matter of images, as opposed to issues pertaining to materiality, technique, style, aesthetics, and provenance. Thus the goal of iconographic investigations is to describe the content of a given image and to interpret the message(s) and ideas it was intended to convey. This process often entails analyzing the development of certain motifs over time and how they were deployed in various historical, religious, and social contexts. In this sense, the study of ancient iconography approaches images not so much as decorative pieces that reflect the creative expressions of individual artists, though stylistic creativity of this sort is sometimes possible to discern. Rather, the study of ancient iconography approaches images as forms of communication that were intentionally commissioned, often by the king, to publicly disseminate specific messages, be they political or religious. At a more basic level, the study of ancient iconography can also enhance the reader’s understanding of what objects and places would have looked like in the ancient world. The relationship between ANE iconography and the OT is complex. With few exceptions (cf. Ezek 23:13), the image-text relation is not simply a matter of biblical authors describing a visual image that they had seen. Neither is it a matter of images being created to depict biblical stories or events. Rather, the connection between ANE iconography and the OT is best understood to operate at a conceptual level. Specifically, literary imagery in the OT often reflects motifs and themes that are also present in the iconographic repertoire of the ancient world. The use of ANE iconography in the study of the OT is most commonly referred to as iconographic exegesis. This method of analysis first surfaced in the early 1970s through the pioneering work of Othmar Keel, at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, and has since been furthered through the work of loose network of scholars known as the “Fribourg School.” Much of this research has focused on aspects of the canon that are especially rich in literary imagery, such as the Psalms and the Prophets. ANE iconography has also proven to be a valuable primary source in the study of the history of Israelite religion. Of particular interest is the nature and development of ancient Israel’s ban on divine images and the resulting tradition of aniconism—the notion that Yahweh was not to be represented in visual or material form and/or that any divine image was an impermissible idol.

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