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Social World of Ancient Israel, 1250-587 B.C.E.. By VICTOR H. MATTHEWS and DON C. BENJAMIN. Peabody, Mass.: HENDMCKSON PUBLISHERS, 1993. Pp. xxiii + 327. $24.95.
This is a selective study of social institutions in the world of ancient Israel. It is divided into two parts: "ancient Israel as villages" (early Israel, 1250-1000 B.C.E.) and "ancient Israel as a state" (monarchy, 1000-587 B.C.E.). Each part gives attention to five areas of life: politics, economics, diplomacy, law, and education.
The principal thrust of the book is to bring together anthropological and biblical studies to illuminate aspects of the social world of ancient Israel. The authors state: "Each chapter begins with an anthropology and ends with an ethnography" (p. ix). That is, every chapter discusses how a particular social institution functioned in the ancient Near East and then examines afresh a set of biblical texts which illuminate, or are illuminated by, the social world just discussed.
The social institutions covered in the five areas of the study are:
Politics
Village: the father; the mother (chs. 1-2)
State: the monarch; the virgin (chs. 12-13)
Economics:
Village: the fanner; the herder; the midwife (chs. 3-5)
State: the...