An explosion of fiction focusing on female biblical characters (most notably, Anita Diamant's 1997 novel The Red Tent) spurred archeologist and scholar Jennie R. Ebeling to write her own book, one that would be less dramatic but perhaps present a more realistic, complex picture of women's everyday lives in ancient Israel. While the core of Women's Lives in Biblical ... Read moreTimes is nonfictional, Ebeling brings the subject to life in the person of 'Orah,' a hypothetical woman living in a small village of the central highlands in the Iron Age 1 (circa 1200-1000 B.C.)...[While] we marvel at the stark differences between Orah's life and that of a modern Western woman, Ebeling connects the reader to this imagined woman's humanity, bringing the past to life in fascinating detail.
National Catholic Reporter
The unique contribution of this work is Ebeling's creative approach... Women's Lives in Biblical Times will be a valuable tool not only in college and seminary classrooms, but also within congregations.
Interpretation
This book will be valuable to any reader who wants to understand more about the life of women in ancient Israel. It will appeal to readers who have read popular fictions or viewed modern films involving biblical characters, to students and teachers of courses dealing with women in the Bible, and to scholars who are interested in an in-depth scholarly treatment of the topic.
Religious Studies Review
This book offers a good, readable introduction into the biblical daily life.
Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft
Women's Lives in Biblical Times presents a well-researched, thought-provoking discussion of the private and communal lives of ancient peoples.
The European Legacy
Ebeling's book achieves the nearly impossible task of giving life to the largely nameless and barely visible women of ancient Israel. Not only does she draw on multiple sources to reconstruct the tasks and relationships that defined women's lives, but also she gives vitality to those features by tracing the life course of a fictional woman in a highland village. Her sensitive portrayal of an imagined person, based on meticulously researched evidence, helps readers discover what life was really like for women in biblical antiquity.
Carol Meyers, Duke University, USA
Jennie Ebeling, an expert in Syro-Palestinian archaeology, masterfully accomplishes her goal to explain what everyday life was like for early Israelite women in a book that is scholarly, engaging, and accessible to the general public. Women's Lives in Biblical Times is unique. Each chapter begins with "Orah's Story," fictional narratives about the life of an Israelite woman in the early Iron Age. Unlike popular novels based on biblical characters, the stories about Orah are informed and written by a scholar of the ancient Near East. Then, Ebeling uses her archaeological and historical expertise to explore stages in the life of women including birth, childhood, puberty, marriage, motherhood, widowhood, death, and burial. She explores the roles women played in agriculture, food preparation, and healthcare, as well as artistic celebrations such as dance and music. Ebeling's book will replace Diamant's novel, The Red Tent, in several of my courses.
Michael M. Homan, Xavier University of Louisiana, USA
It is exciting to find a book that so knowledgably presents state-of-the-art scholarship about women in Iron Age Israel. In Women's Lives in Biblical Times, Jennie Ebeling takes up a complex and important topic, one that merits intensive study. Her sophisticated analysis of archaeological data, biblical passages and anthropological studies ensures that scholars well versed in the field will find much new to consider. At the same time, her readable style of writing and the fictional storyline that enhances her scholarly presentation make this book appealing to students and other interested readers. Women's Lives in Biblical Times will be an asset in libraries and classrooms, and in personal collections.
Beth Alpert Nakhai, The University of Arizona, USA
A delightful book! In Women's Lives in Biblical Times, Jennie Ebeling creatively combines an imaginative sketch of the life of an ancient Israelite woman with a rich array of biblical, archaeological, and comparative evidence, both compellingly to describe and convincingly to document the nature of everyday existence for the typical Israelite woman of the late second millennium BCE. The result is a study that is simultaneously learned and fun, a wonderful contribution to our understanding of Israelite women and tradition.
Susan Ackerman, Dartmouth College, USA
There have been a few attempts by biblical scholars to tell us about daily life in ancient Israel. But up to now there has been no full-scale account by anyone - and none specifically about women, none by archaeologists who are now the best qualified to write about 'how it really was' for ordinary folk. This book, by a woman who is a professional field archaeologist working in Israel, and who also has sound training in biblical studies, is the book we have been waiting for. It is conceived in a partly fictional setting - the story of "Orah" - but it is based on the most recent and best archaeological information. Orah comes to life and speaks to us dramatically about her varied roles in her small world, her hardships and hopes. The story is riveting.
William G. Dever, University of Arizona, USA
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