A sculpted ceramic clock, by Michael Silverstone, depicting emblems of the twelve tribes of Israel surrounding a reconstruction of the Temple. Image courtesy of Wikimedia commons.
A sculpted ceramic clock, by Michael Silverstone, depicting emblems of the twelve tribes of Israel surrounding a reconstruction of the Temple. Image courtesy of Wikimedia commons.
You may not know it, but you live in a world full of Israels. If there aren’t groups claiming descent from the ancient Israelites on every continent, it is only for this reason – that Antarctica isn’t trying hard enough. And strange as it may seem at first blush, it really makes a lot of sense.
Read MoreThere were, in the ancient world and even into the medieval, those who claimed descent from the heroes of the Trojan War, and there have always been those who connected their genealogies to Noah’s Ark. I feel, however, very confident in saying that no identity in the history of the world has been assumed so often, in so many places, and for so long a time as Israel.
Read MoreOverall, then, Vayntrub’s study is a timely and incisive contribution to the study not just of biblical poetry, or of representations of oral speech in biblical literature, but of what many biblical traditions fundamentally are and reflect.
Read MoreAndrew Tobolowsky shares his classroom handout: “A Short Introduction to the Bible and the History of Ancient Israel.”
Read More“The Bible is, and will likely long continue to be, both building material and building. It’s a treasury of the ancient world, a storehouse in which lie a large percentage of the glittering gems which survived the ancient Levant in any form. And it’s a doorway through which the ancient Levant continues to shape the present, as well as the history of how this heritage has been repeatedly reshaped and by whom.”
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