The Cultural World of the Bible

An Illustrated Guide to Manners and Customs

Matthews, Victor H.

• Publisher: Baker Academic
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781441228253
• Edition: 4
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Reference

In this new edition of a successful book (over 120, 000 copies sold), now updated throughout, a leading expert on the social world of the Bible offers students a reliable guide to the manners and customs of the ancient world. From what people wore, ate, and built to how they exercised justice, mourned, and viewed family and legal customs, this illustrated introduction helps readers gain valuable cultural background on the biblical world. The attractive, full-color, user-friendly design will appeal to students, while numerous pedagogical features--including fifty photos, sidebars, callouts, maps, charts, a glossary of key terms, chapter outlines, and discussion questions--increase classroom utility. Previously published as Manners and Customs in the Bible.

1
Ancestral Period

CHAPTER OUTLINE

Historical Introduction

Physical Appearance and Fashion

Cultural Issues Faced by Immigrants

Wife-Sister Stratagem

The Purchase of Machpelah

The Rape of Dinah

Burial Customs

Herding Practices

Water Rights

Food Preparation and Diet

Marriage Customs

Marriage within the Group

Importance of an Heir

Religious Practices

Legal Customs

Execution of Justice

Weapons and Warfare

Discussion Questions

Historical Introduction

The ancestral stories in the book of Genesis provide a legal and social foundation for much of the rest of the biblical narrative. It is important, for instance, to have a story that explains where the people came from and why they had a claim to the “promised land” that supersedes the claims of the Canaanites who occupied that territory before the arrival of Abram and his family. At the same time, it is important to explain why certain places become integral to Israel’s history. The narratives draw on collective memory contained in a host of stories that were edited into their current form. These stories are not intended to serve as a history of the time period when Abram and his descendants first settled in Canaan. Instead they provide the basis for theological and traditional precedents that guide the Israelites in later periods.

Precedents in the Ancestral Narratives

1. God’s covenant promise. A conditional contract is established with Abram to receive land and children in exchange for obedience to God’s command and exclusive worship of Yahweh.
2. Altars built in Canaan. They provide an introduction of Yahweh worship and a physical “stake” in claiming the promised land.
3. Significant places. Repeated visits to Shechem, Bethel, Hebron, and Beer-sheba mark them as geographic centers of importance.
4. Circumcision becomes a mark of membership. While not unique to the Israelites, it is sufficiently unusual (compare the “uncircumcised” Philistines) to serve that purpose.
5. Bargaining is possible with God. Abraham does this over the fate of Sodom (Gen. 18), and Jacob negotiates with God over becoming heir of the covenant (Gen. 28).
6. Endogamy. At least for the first three generations, it was important to only marry within the designated group.

Anachronisms in the Ancestral Narratives

Camels were first domesticated in the Arabian peninsula and would have been unusual among pastoral nomadic groups in Canaan prior to the thirteenth century BCE (see Gen. 12:14–16; 24:10–67; 31:17–35; 37:25).

Philistines did not arrive in Canaan until after the 1200 BCE invasion of the Near East by the Sea Peoples (see Gen. 21:34; 26:1, 8, 18).

Reference to city of Dan (Gen. 14:14) reflects the later name for a city originally known as Laish (Judg. 18:27–29).

In the book of Genesis, Abraham and the other ancestral figures are portrayed as pastoral nomads who travel from northwestern Mesopotamia (Haran) southwest into Canaan by way of Damascus. From there they take their flocks and families west into Egypt on two occasions, settling in the third generation in the Nile Delta region (Goshen) after Joseph obtains a royal bequest from the pharaoh. Along the way they engage in the normal pursuits of pastoral nomadic peoples, seeking pasture for their sheep and goats and interacting with the settled population. The efforts of historians and the excavations of archaeologists have yet to provide incontrovertible evidence for the historical reality of the ancestors. As a result some scholars argue that the narratives are literary recreations of tribal history compiled by scribes or priests during the monarchic or the postexilic period to provide the nation of Israel with a claim to Canaan and an origin story. According to this view, the ancestors were either folk heroes or composite characters based on the exploits of many different tribal leaders from the nation’s past.

While the memories of this period are hazy, the episodes in the ancestral narratives are appealing to readers for their human interest value. They contain quite convincing and poignant descriptions of itinerant herders and their families. The attention to detail and the importance attached to certain social customs suggest that this material is more than a literary attempt to recreate an ancient era. There simply is no point in making up forms of social interaction, especially if your original audience is very familiar with tribal groups and basic family dynamics. Certainly the text does contain some anachronisms (elements that fit into a different time period than that of the story), and the evidence of later editing of the text is clear in many places. Nevertheless, the narratives give the overwhelming impression of a time when the ancestors of the Hebrews were new to the land and still dependent on the household and the tribe, not the nation, for their identity.

Figure 1.1. King Hammurabi

The exact dates of the ancestral period are still uncertain since we lack extrabiblical confirmation of the characters or events in Genesis. Ancient cuneiform tablets found at the northern Mesopotamian city of Mari and dated to the eighteenth century BCE do contain descriptions of tribal groups whose activities and interactions with the urban community are surprisingly similar to those of the biblical ancestors. Of course, similar environmental and economic conditions among tribal people are likely to foster similar herding strategies and interactions with local officials. We can certainly posit that the pastoral nomadic tribes in the Mari letters operated in a similar manner, and that can assist with an examination of the setting for the ancestral narratives. Still, the use of parallel information and historical events such as those found in the Mari documents must be employed with care when drawing conclusions about the Bible. If it were possible to provide a likely time period for the ancestors, however, the turbulent centuries of the early second millennium could be a good choice.

In terms of the history of the eighteenth and seventeenth centuries BCE, it was a time of flux and transformation for the cultures of Mesopotamia. Under the leadership of King Hammurabi and his successors, Babylon conquered all of the city-states and kingdoms in the region. The kings of Babylon subjected the inhabitants of the entire Tigris-Euphrates valley to centralized rule and imposed both the benefits and the constraints of Babylonian law and administration. After 1600 BCE, the Babylonian Empire went into decline and was eventually replaced by a group of smaller states, including the Kassites in the south and the Mitanni in north-central Mesopotamia.

I was also given robes of purest linen, myrrh, and the scents used by Pharaoh and his court. I had slaves to perform my every wish. (OTP, 141)

During the period between 2000 and 1800 BCE, Egypt also experienced internal disorder. This situation is demonstrated in the epic narrative of Sinuhe, a political refugee who fled to Canaan in order to escape being implicated in the murder of a pharaoh (OTP, 137–41). His joy, when he is eventually allowed to return to Egypt, is marked by a change of clothing (much like Joseph in Gen. 41:42–43) and the discarding of his “desert clothes.” A further sign of political unrest in the eighteenth century BCE occurs when the Hyksos raiders invaded the ancient kingdom. As new leaders were installed, Egypt had little time to deal with its political and economic contacts in Canaan. The foreign invaders set themselves up as pharaohs at Avaris, their Delta region capital. Archaeological and textual evidence suggest that these foreign rulers were of Asiatic, and more specifically Western Semitic or Amorite, origin. Discovery of scarabs (images of the dung beetle that had inscriptions carved into their flat side), amulets, and other Egyptian merchandise found at Jericho, Megiddo, and other major sites in Canaan indicate active trade between the Hyksos and the Levant during this period. Some see this political shake-up as an opportune time for Joseph and his brothers to move into the area of Goshen (Gen. 46:1–47:12), also in the Nile Delta, but again we lack Egyptian sources to confirm this possibility.

During the time when Babylon’s kings built and lost an empire in Mesopotamia, and Egypt suffered internal problems, the peoples of Canaan enjoyed relative freedom. The freedom to develop on their own continued until the rise of the New Kingdom in Egypt (sixteenth century BCE), when its aggressive pharaohs defeated the Hyksos rulers and attempted to restore their extended control over Canaan. Taken in the context of the biblical narrative, it is interesting to see that Abraham’s household is able to enter and spend extended periods of time in Canaan without reference to an Egyptian presence there. If this was indeed the period associated with Israel’s ancestors, then they took advantage of new opportunities for building a life in other lands distant from the conflicts in Mesopotamia and later in a region of Egypt controlled by foreign rulers.

Regardless of the degree of historicity of the ancestral narratives, the aspects of the basic economy and social life of pastoral nomadic peoples in the ancient Near East can be studied using these stories of Abraham and his descendants. Individual aspects of existence will be highlighted below, and special regard will be given to the literary construction of the narratives, archaeological discoveries, and any parallel written materials available from Mesopotamia and Egypt.

Physical Appearance and Fashion

The ancestors and their families were Semites, the dominant ethnic group in Mesopotamia and much of Syria and Canaan. There is a family of languages associated with these peoples divided into east and west Semitic, with distinctive dialectical differences but the same basic structure. Semites in the ancient Near East had black hair and a dark complexion burned even darker by the sun (Lam. 5:10). Since there are few biblical descriptions of individuals’ features, the examination of burial remains and of a few surviving paintings, such as those found in the nineteenth-century BCE Egyptian tomb at Beni-Hasan, provides us with this picture. Dwellings with low roofs that stood not much more than five feet above the floor suggest that Semites were short in stature (compare the emphasis given to Saul’s unusual height in 1 Sam. 9:2). Most ate meat only on festive occasions (see Gen. 18:7), and diets primarily made up of grains and goat milk contributed to their shorter sizes.

Based on what is seen in palace art and figurines, Mesopotamian men generally wore full beards that were carefully curled and squared off at the bottom. However, the West Semites of Canaan that are portrayed in both the Egyptian Beni-Hasan painting and the carved figures on the Assyrian “Black Obelisk” of Shalmaneser III (841 BCE) have short, pointed beards. These differences may be stylized artistic representations designed to distinguish between peoples. Hair was often worn shoulder length with a band of cloth or beads to hold it in place. Women’s coiffures tended to be fairly simple. Their long hair was sometimes bound up with beaded ropes or intertwined with combs of bone, gold, or silver. On the road or in the pastoral encampment, however, such attention to fashion would not be possible or desirable.

In portions of Mesopotamia and other regions where the climate was extremely dry, the complexion could be easily damaged. As a result, meticulous attention was given to skin care. Both men and women regularly oiled their skin and hair (Pss. 92:10; 104:15). This gave the body a glossy appearance and also helped kill hair lice and other parasites.

By necessity, the clothing of pastoralists was primarily functional, though it was not that much different from the clothing worn by artisans and other commoners. This fashion stands in contrast to the nonfunctional, long-sleeved garment that Jacob gives to Joseph as an indication that his favorite son would not have to work with the herds (Gen. 37:3). Sturdy leather sandals protected the feet of both sexes. They enclosed the heel and were fastened to the ankle by a thong that passed between the first and second toes (Gen. 14:23).

Figure 1.2. Semites pictured in a painting found in the nineteenth-century BCE Egyptian tomb at Beni-Hasan

Throughout the biblical period, men wore the kethoneth, a knee-length wool tunic with half sleeves. This was bound at the waist with a belt. A cloak or mantle (simlah) was also worn as protection against the sun and during storms. In the exodus account it was used to carry bread dough and kneading bowls (Exod. 12:34). A girdle (ezor), or loincloth, was also worn in later periods (Jer. 13:2; Job 12:18). Women wore a similar tunic and robe that concealed the figure, although some representations in art (as in the Beni-Hasan tomb paintings) portray them with the right shoulder bare. It was customary for both males and females who were in mourning to wear sackcloth (Gen. 37:34; 2 Sam. 21:10).

Clothing not only distinguished genders but also functioned as a social marker indicating a change in status. For example, Judah’s daughter-in-law Tamar wears “widow’s garments” (possibly black robes). When in Genesis 38:14 she removed her widow’s garb, donned normal clothing, and wore a veil, she was able to disguise herself as a harlot and fool Judah. Some scholars look to the practice of the sacred prostitutes of the Canaanite goddess Asherah, who wore veils as part of their sacred costume, as the basis for interpreting Tamar’s action (2 Kings 23:7). Perhaps Hebrew women in the ancestral period generally went unveiled, and therefore Tamar was following Canaanite custom when she played the role of a veiled harlot. The issue is clouded somewhat by the action of Rebekah in Genesis 24:65. In this passage she dons her veil in expectation of meeting her future husband, Isaac, for the first time. Her act of modesty is more in line with Mesopotamian custom. This is reinforced by the Middle Assyrian law code dated to ca. 1100 BCE that required harlots to appear unveiled in public on pain of death (#40; ANET, 183). Ultimately, location “on the road to Timnah” and the fact that Tamar is unaccompanied may be more important to the story line than her veil.

Jewelry, then as now, was a common adornment for both men and women and also served as a visual sign of wealth. In Genesis 24:47, 53, Abraham’s servant gives Rebekah a nose ring and arm bracelets as well as unspecified...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Preface to the Fourth Edition
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1. Ancestral Period
• 2. Exodus-Settlement Period
• 3. Monarchic Period
• 4. Exile and Return
• 5. Intertestamental and New Testament Periods
• Glossary
• Annotated and Select Bibliography
• Index of Subjects
• Index of Personal Names
• Index of Place Names
• Index of Scripture and Other Ancient Writings
• Image Credits
• Back Cover