The past generation of scholars saw the shift from unified notions of biblical theology to diverse developmental models based on the rise of monotheism towards the end of the biblical period. Now another, perhaps more relevant, shift is becoming apparent: a movement from ideas of unity to those of pluralism and diversity within the religion ... Read morepracticed by ancient Israelites and Judahites. Edited by two prominent scholars, this book brings together all the existing scholarly perspectives on such diversity, and adds some new ones. This remarkable volume represents the eye of the storm in current biblical scholarship.
Bernhard Lang, University of Paderborn, Germany. Books about "the religion of ancient Israel" are not always clear as to whether their subject matter is what people in those times and places were actually doing and thinking (a further degree of difficulty) in the religious sphere of their lives, or rather what certain religious elites - priests, prophets, law scribes - thought they ought to be doing and thinking. As its title suggests, the present volume is quite clear on that point. Its contributors present a wide range of religious practices diversified geographically (north, south), topographically (household, village, city, temple, royal court), and sociologically (peasant culture, professional groups, cultic personnel), in the process illuminating many fascinating by-ways of scholarship. The editors and contributors are to be congratulated on putting together a composite image of religion in practice under the rubric of religious diversity. This is a book not to be missed.
Joseph Blenkinsopp, University of Notre Dame, IN, USA. It has long been a commonplace to assume development within the religion of ancient Israel
as is evidenced by the many chronologically-based histories of Israelite religion that were produced during the late nineteenth century and throughout the twentieth century. Development, moreover, could be taken to imply diversity, through the defining of differences between Israelite religious thought of the monarchical period, say, and of the postexilic era. But the authors of Religious Diversity in Ancient Israel and Judah bring a far more sophisticated and far more exciting paradigm of difference to bear in their work, both by moving beyond scholars' traditional focus on developments in the religious thought of Israel's theological elites in order to concentrate instead on Israelite religion as it was actually lived and practiced among the population at large, and also by taking seriously differences in the ancient Israelites' religious life and practice that were manifest concurrently during any given time within ancient Israelite history - due, say, to differences in geographical location or due to differences in social context within the same geographical region (so that, for example, Israelite religion as it was practiced in urban venues is contrasted profitably to the religious expressions that characterized rural settlements, and religion as it was practiced in the Judahite royal palace is equally profitably contrasted to the religion of the commoner's household). The result is a richly textured description of Israel's "micro-religions" that represents, moreover, the state of the art, as older narratives of theological evolution are left behind in favor of a multivalent and carefully nuanced account of the manifold variations that characterized Israelite and Judahite religious life at every moment during these two polities' existence.
Susan Ackerman, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA The editors of this volume have brought together an international team of scholars who have already published landmark contributions to the issue of diversies of relegion in ancient Israel. Here they give pedagogical presentations of their specialist insights into matters of importance to all students of the Hebrew Bible.
Tryggve Mettinger, Lund University, Sweden In this timely volume, leading Old Testament/Hebrew Bible scholars from various countries and traditions address key aspects of the religious pluriformity of ancient Israel and Judah. They present a wide readership with fine essays on the highly diverse religious culture(s) of the 'land of the Bible', based on methodologically sound, critical explorations of the relevant biblical texts and ancient artefacts. This collection is an excellent contribution to the current lively debate on the religious history of Israel and Judah, providing its readers with significant, provocative insights and much food for thought.
Joachim Schaper, Chair in Hebrew, Old Testament and Early Jewish Studies, Divinity and Religious Studies, University of Aberdeen, UK. This is a splendid collection of essays whose publication is greatly to be welcomed. Its contributors are scholars who are well qualified to tackle aspects of the religious life of ancient Israel and Judah. The volume reveals something of the extent to which the Hebrew Bible's presentation of religion has been influenced by the Deuteronomists and what they wanted to portray, and demonstrates not only that there was diversity but that such diversity cannot simply be summed up as the difference between 'official' and 'popular', or 'urban' and 'rural'. A feature of the volume as a whole is that it offers a constructive balance between (biblical) textual and archaeological evidence, acknowledging that both have their contributions to make while both have their interpretational problems. Perhaps understandably the emphasis is on religious practices rather than beliefs but, in a telling phrase in the book's postscript, Barton reminds us that the authors of the Hebrew Bible "...were already in the business of thinking about Yahweh as well as worshipping him" (p.373).
Adrian Curtis, The University of Manchester, UK. The essayists who contributed to this volume tell lively tales in an engaging style.
The Good Book Stall, September 2010
Reviewed in SAPIENS- Revista de Historia, Patrimonio e Arqueologia, no. 5 Mentioned in the Church Times Show Less