The agricultural world of Old Testament Israel swarmed with animals--birds, insects, fish, pack animals, pets, animals for hunting, and domesticated herds of sheep, goats, and cattle. Using information from the Bible, Ancient Near Eastern documents, anthropology, and archaeology, Borowski synthesizes what we know about the use of animals in biblical times for food, clothing, transportation, and even cultic practices. This comprehensive catalog is a convenient desk resource for any reader_whether biblical scholar, archaeology student, or layperson. Essays on pastoral systems, cult, and agricultural economics, makes this also an important tool for researchers.

While the history of Israel during the period from ca. 1200 to 586 B.C.E. has been in the forefront of biblical research, little attention has been given to questions of daily life. Where did the Israelites live? What did people do for a living? What did they eat and what affected their health? How did the family function? These and similar questions form the basis for this book. The book introduces different aspects of daily life. It describes the natural setting and the people who occupied the land. It deals with the economy, both rural and urban, emphasizing the main sources of livelihood such as agriculture, herding, and trade. These topics are discussed in relation to the family in particular and the social structure in general. Other topics include urban society, the bureaucracy and the military. Beyond material culture, the book delves into daily and seasonal cultural, social and religious activities, art, music, and the place of writing in Israelite society. Drawing on textual and archaeological evidence, and written with nontechnical language, the book will be especially helpful for undergraduates, seminarians, pastors, rabbis, and other interested nonspecialist readers as well as graduate students and faculty in Hebrew Bible.

This book deals with agriculture as practiced in ancient Israel from the settlement to the destruction of the First Temple. It describes crops and trees cultivated by the Israelite farmer and the methods and tools used in cultivation. The information is gathered from both literary and archaeological sources, with the Old Testament supplying most of the literary information. The author attributes several innovations to the biblical peasant: large-scale terracing, runoff farming (i.e. irrigation), restoration of soil fertility, and the invention of the beam oil-press. Out of print for some time, Eisenbrauns is pleased once again to make this valuable resource available.