This commentary views Exodus as a cultural document, preserving the collective memories of the Israelites and relating them to the major institutions and beliefs that emerged by the end of the period of the Hebrew Bible. It is intended to help the reader follow the story line of Exodus, understand its socio-cultural context, appreciate its literary features, recognize its major themes and values, and also note its interpretive and moral problems. It explains important concepts and terms as expressed in the Hebrew original so that both people who know Hebrew and those who don't will be able to follow the discussion. Frequent 'closer look' sections examine key elements of the Ancient Near East that bear on the text's meaning, while 'Bridging the Horizons' articles connect this world with the cultural, political and religious environments of today.

This groundbreaking study looks beyond biblical texts, which have had a powerful influence over our views of women's roles and worth, in order to reconstruct the typical everyday lives of women in ancient Israel. Carol Meyers argues that biblical sources alone do not give a true picture of ancient Israelite women because urban elite males wrote the vast majority of the scriptural texts and the stories of women in the Bible concern exceptional individuals rather than ordinary Israelite women. Drawing on archaeological discoveries and ethnographic information as well as biblical texts, Meyers depicts Israelite women not as submissive chattel in an oppressive patriarchy, but rather as strong and significant actors within their families and society. In so doing, she challenges the very notion of patriarchy as an appropriate designation for Israelite society.

This commentary views Exodus as a cultural document, preserving the collective memories of the Israelites and relating them to the major institutions and beliefs that emerged by the end of the period of the Hebrew Bible. It is intended to help the reader follow the story line of Exodus, understand its socio-cultural context, appreciate its literary features, recognize its major themes and values, and also note its interpretive and moral problems. It explains important concepts and terms as expressed in the Hebrew original so that both people who know Hebrew and those who don't will be able to follow the discussion. Frequent 'closer look' sections examine key elements of the Ancient Near East that bear on the text's meaning, while 'Bridging the Horizons' articles connect this world with the cultural, political and religious environments of today.

This groundbreaking study looks beyond biblical texts, which have had a powerful influence over our views of women's roles and worth, in order to reconstruct the typical everyday lives of women in ancient Israel. Carol Meyers argues that biblical sources alone do not give a true picture of ancient Israelite women because urban elite males wrote the vast majority of the scriptural texts. Also, the stories of women in the Bible concern exceptional individuals rather than ordinary Israelite women. Drawing on archaeological discoveries and ethnographic information as well as biblical texts, Meyers depicts Israelite women not as submissive chattel in an oppressive patriarchy, but rather as strong and significant actors within their families and in their communities. In so doing, she challenges the very notion of patriarchy as an appropriate designation for Israelite society.

The biblical image of Eve has powerfully influenced ideas about women for the past two millennia. Yet, as Carol Meyers argues in Discovering Eve, the image of the first of women as subservient and dependent does not represent some irreducible historical truth. Rather, it represents the androcentric constructions of a group of urban elite males (including, most notably, the Apostle Paul and Rabbi Yohannan) who had a decisive effect on the founding of Judaeo-Christian traditions. Meyers produces convincing evidence, archaeological, scriptural, and sociological, that ancient Israelite woman fulfilled a role very different from that of the biblical Eve. The real Eve, she demonstrates, was a figure of some social substance, a strong and important figure in the social and familial milieux.

Food and feasting are key themes in the Hebrew Bible and the culture it represents. The contributors to this handbook draw on a multitude of disciplines to offer an overview of food in the Hebrew Bible and ancient Israel. Archaeological materials from biblical lands, along with the recent interest in ethnographic data, a new focus in anthropology, and emerging technologies provide valuable information about ancient foodways. The contributors examine not only the textual materials of the Hebrew Bible and related epigraphic works, but also engage in a wider archaeological, environmental, and historical understanding of ancient Israel as it pertains to food. Divided into five parts, this handbook examines and considers environmental and socio-economic issues such as climate and trade, the production of raw materials, and the technology of harvesting and food processing. The cultural role of food and meals in festivals, holidays, and biblical regulations is also discussed, as is the way food and drink are treated in biblical texts, in related epigraphic materials, and in iconography.

Through this comprehensive study of the Menorah, Carol Meyers demonstrates that its symbolic value comes to exceed its function as a source of light, for it symbolizes plant life, cosmic power, and ultimately the reality of the presence of the deity in the tabernacle.

Bir Umm Fawakhir is a fifth-sixth century AD Coptic/Byzantine gold-mining town located in the central Eastern Desert of Egypt. The Bir Umm Fawakhir Project of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago carried out four seasons of archaeological survey at the site, in 1992, 1993, 1996, and 1997; one season of excavation in 1999; and one study season in 2001. This volume is the final report on the 1996 and 1997 seasons. The goals of the 1996 and 1997 field seasons were to complete the detailed map of the main settlement, to continue the investigation of the outlying clusters of ruins or "Outliers" and to address some specific questions such as the ancient gold-extraction process. The completion of these goals makes the main settlement at Bir Umm Fawakhir one of the only completely mapped towns of the period in Egypt. Not only is the main settlement plotted room for room and door for door but also features such as guardposts, cemeteries, paths, roads, wells, outlying clusters of ruins and mines are known and some of these are features not always readily detectable archaeologically. This volume presents the pre-Coptic material; a detailed discussion of the remains in the main settlement, outliers and cemeteries; the Coptic/Byzantine pottery, small finds and dipinti; as well as a study of ancient mining techniques.