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.
Solomon, Scripture, and Science: The Rise of the Judahite State in the 10th Century BCE
