The Illustrated Dictionary of Bible Manners & Customs

A. Van Deursen

• Publisher: Philosophical Library/Open Road
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781504066822
• Topic: Teología y religión
• Subtopic: Referencia bíblica

This comprehensive volume provides detailed descriptions, illustrations, and context for many of the Bible's historical and cultural references. Bible stories are full of objects, manners, and customs that would have been easily recognized by people living in the Middle East during ancient times. Towns have their walls and gates; agriculture has its threshing instruments and carts; the tabernacle has its altars and lavers of brass. But while the terms used to describe these items were once common knowledge, they leave many modern readers wondering about their specific meanings. This volume offers a clearer understanding of the Bible through accessible information about its many historical references. Organized by subject matter, it includes chapters on everything from vegetation to coinage, matrimony, weaponry, transportation, idolatry, and holy places, among many other topics. Based on archeological research, The Illustrated Dictionary of Bible Manners & Customs helps readers attain a more vivid sense of the Bible's rich background and longstanding influence.

1. The City and Its Walls

1. Tell el-Hesy, a mound after partial levelling. Where once an ancient city stood, a heap of ruins is all that is now left. In the Authorized Version such a mound is called a “heap”. Joshua “made Ai an heap” (Joshua 8:28) and Jeremiah says of Jerusalem that the city will be rebuilt “on her own heap”, on the mound (Jer. 30:18).

2. Section of Tell el-Hesy, where archaeologists have been able to establish the existence of eight cities of various periods corresponding to successive layers in the soil. The figures on the left give the height in feet. It is possible to deduce the age of a settlement from remnants of their civilization and to date a layer by studying broken fragments of pottery. The archaeologist Bliss found in the fourth city a clay tablet which obviously belonged to the same category as the El Amarna letters and could hence be given a date in the fifteenth century. Scarabs of the eighteenth dynasty (signets giving the imprint of a dung-beetle, a prominent symbol in Egyptian religion) also indicated that a likely date would be somewhere near 1400 B.C., which gives us a reasonably accurate date for the fourth city, immediately above the ash stratum (aa). Perhaps Tell el-Hesy corresponds to Eglon in Joshua 10:3.

3. Wall of Tell Beit Mirsim (the ancient Kiriath-sepher, “the city of books”, taken by Othniel, Judges 1:12). In those days city walls were of a composite structure consisting of a rampart of sand and rubble with a facing of heavy stone blocks on the outside (a). The inside may have a second wall to hold the earth and rubble in place.

The figure standing at the foot of the wall gives some idea of its height, which would account for the Scouts’ anxiety: the cities are great and walled up to heaven (Deut. 1:28).

4. Gate flanked by towers. In general there was only one gate in the wall of the smaller cities (“the gate of the city”, Luke 7:12). The doors themselves (d) were reinforced with iron (Isa. 45:2). On each side of the gate there were towers (a) which, according to Professor de Groot, were perhaps twelve metres wide, jutting out some distance, and surrounded by a continuous row of battlements for defence purposes. Above the gate (c) was the place for the watchman (2 Sam. 18:24).

5. Double walls. Some cities, of which Jericho was one, were surrounded by double walls. The inner wall (c) had a thickness of 3˙3–3˙7 metres and was surrounded by an apron wall (a), 1˙5–1˙6 metres thick. This outer wall is sometimes called a bulwark in the Authorized Version (Isa. 26:1). Jeremiah grieved over Zion: He made the rampart (a) and the wall (c) to lament (Lam. 2:8). The walls were built of mud bricks on a foundation of rocks from the fields. At one corner of the inner wall stood a strong tower or fortress (b), the last point of defence (Judges 9:49, 51). Between the gate of the outer wall (b) and of the inner wall (e) was the space between the two gates (2 Sam. 18:24). The gate is near the well (g); it was of course of vital importance that the city should have water, and so it was built near a well (cf. Rama, 1 Sam. 9:11). The projections (c) served as archers’ positions.

2. View of the City of Megiddo

View of the city of Megiddo at the time of the first kings (about the tenth century B.C. in the opinion of the scholars who excavated the mound of Tell el-Mutesellim). They gave the name “the large house” to the extensive building (ac) which stood near the north-east wall. This large house, which is attributed to the tenth century B.C. because of the stratum in which it was discovered, was presumably the headquarters of the commandant or possibly the residence of the governor, Baana (1 Kings 4:12). Next to this building was a paved courtyard (b) where the soldiers used to assemble before climbing the steps to the city wall (g). Near the steps was also the commandant’s watch-tower (c). This tower was built of cut and levelled freestone. Typical of their method, also apparent in the outer city wall, was the position of a bondstone next to two stretchers, with a course of stretchers in the next layer. The wall of the large house also consisted of cut stones— three rows of hewed stones (1 Kings 7:12; see also 3, 1), built on a foundation of rough stone (f) and braced with cedar beams (e). The presence of this wood could be deduced from ash found in the inner court, from which it was clear that the beams had fallen victim to flames that had left the masonry almost unscathed. The upright beams (e) carried the joists of the ceiling (d). The “Large House” in Megiddo is reminiscent of Solomon’s palace: and a great court round about was with three rows of hewed stones, and a row of cedar beams (1 Kings 7:12). Informed opinion compares the architectural style of Megiddo with Solomon’s at Jerusalem on the one hand, and with the Hittites’ on the other. This house in Megiddo also bears some resemblance to Ahab’s palace in Samaria. Both in its execution and its design it is manifestly the work of accomplished craftsmen. The foundations reveal a rare feature—horizontal beams forming a plate. To the left of the building is the great, massive city wall; the top of the wall is wide enough to accommodate both the guards and a defending army. The view from the walls across the city gives an impression of flat roofs at about the same height, intersected by the narrow streets running between the houses. In the street in front of the large house is a chariot drawn by two horses. It was at Megiddo that the famous stables of Solomon were found. Megiddo was a fortress: one of the chariot cities and “the cities of the horsemen” (2 Chron. 8:6; 1 Kings 9:17–19); a fortress in a key position at the entrance to the famous valley of Megiddo. Many battles have been fought in that valley; the word Armageddon (Rev. 16:16) is sometimes rendered by “Mount Megiddo”. This accounts for the title “New Light from Armageddon” given by the director of operations to his book recording these discoveries.

3. Towers, Fortresses and Houses

1. Israelite fortified tower in Samaria. Samaria was built on a hill (1 Kings 16:24) at “the head of the fat valleys” (Isa. 28:1). Completely isolated as it was, the place was admirably suited for defence. Condor claims that this fortress must have been impregnable before the invention of gunpowder. Its defences consisted of walls and towers or citadels. Typical of the post-Solomonian style was this stacking of large oblong stone blocks (a) ground smooth on the outer face (b). The heavy, accurately shaped stones fit neatly on top of one another; here again “three rows of hewed stones”. (See 2, 1. 15.)

2. Reconstruction of the fortress of Shechem between Mount Ebal and Gerizim. The city of Shechem (c), unlike most of the other cities of Palestine, was not built on the top of a natural hill, but at the widening of the valley between Gerizim (a) and Ebal (b). The oldest settlement was situated on a terrace on the almost flat spur of Mount Ebal, looking like a shoulder (for that is what the word Shechem means) projecting from the head of the mountain (Professor Böhl).

This is probably where “the hold (c) of the house of the God Berith” (Judges 9:46) was excavated, the tower of Shechem with its bulwark.

3. The western stronghold at Taanach (Professor Thiersch’s reconstruction). The wall in the background is the city wall (a) with the stronghold inside it. This citadel (bb) was a large, almost square building, 20 x 21.8 metres. The courtyard (c) to the right had in it a cistern (d), a sunken basin which the A.V. calls a cistern in Proverbs 5:15 and a pit in Matthew 12:11. The court was enclosed by rooms with walls of soft-baked bricks (e), reinforced with wooden beams. A flight of steps leads straight from the courtyard to the upper floor and to the roof of the stronghold. This then was where the watchman on the wall was posted (f).

4. Flat-roofed houses inside the city wall. The majority of the houses in the city would be small, four-walled, single-story buildings made of soft-baked bricks (c) on a foundation of stone blocks and rocks. The framework of the doorway consisted of two stone side-posts (d) and an upper door-post (e) as they are called in Exodus 12:7 and a threshold (f) (1 Kings 14:17). If there was a window at all, one (g) was considered enough (Joshua 2:18). Steps (a) led to the flat roof (b). Because the houses were often of the same height and adjoined one another, it was easy to pass from one roof to the next (Matt. 24:17).

4. House in Ur at the Time of Abraham

The drawing illustrates a house at the time of Abraham, as envisaged by the archaeologist Woolley as a result of excavations made at the site of the biblical Ur. These houses, built after 2100 and destroyed in 1885 B.C., reveal that Abraham and his ancestors in Ur lived in a city with a high standard of civilisation; the houses testify to comfort and luxury. The inhabitants of Ur lived in houses built of soft-baked bricks rendered in plaster and whitewash. The rooms surrounded an inner courtyard from which they derived light and air; for on the outside only blank, windowless walls faced the narrow, crooked, unpaved streets. The front door led from the street to the antechamber (v) containing a gutter full of water where visitors could wash their hands and feet and from here proceed to the inner court (b). This was paved with bricks (a,a) and in Babylon the joints were often filled with bitumen, slime in the A.V. (Gen. 11:3). In one corner was the staircase (c) leading to the gallery (e), which gave access to the rooms on the upper floor. The house was finished off with a flat roof (f), constructed to allow for a slight declivity from the inner edge. The gallery was supported on wooden posts (p) with or without plinths (n). (In Israel too, the large houses of the elite also had such posts, called beams in the A.V. (Hab. 2:11) or pillars (Prov. 9:1)). There are two large pots (d) on the courtyard floor which, to judge from their shape, were made on the potter’s wheel and not by hand alone.

An examination of the floors revealed that people often used to bury their dead under a mud casing in the shape of an upturned bath. This custom of burying the dead in the house or in the yard has a parallel in 1 Samuel 25:1 and 1 Kings 2:34. Professor de Groot writes in his account: “The same thing was noted in the excavations at Gezer and Jericho; at Gezer during the Canaanite period, in Jericho even at the time of the Jews.” The b...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Contents
• Introduction
• 1. The City and Its Walls
• 2. View of the City of Megiddo
• 3. Towers, Fortresses and Houses
• 4. House in Ur at the Time of Abraham
• 5. Houses
• 6. Meals
• 7. The Tent; Articles in Everyday Use
• 8. Pottery
• 9. Tools
• 10. Saws, Spades, Ploughs
• 11. Agriculture
• 12. Winnowing, Sieving, Measuring
• 13. Measuring and Milling
• 14. Bread Baking
• 15. Water and Milk
• 16. Hunting and Fishing
• 17. Crafts
• 18. Vineyards and Olive Press
• 19. Shepherds, Sheep, Stables
• 20. Smith; Weaver
• 21. Dress
• 22. Ornaments
• 23. Musical Instruments
• 24. Script (1)
• 25. Script (2)
• 26. Ancient Scrolls
• 27. River Craft
• 28. Ships
• 29. Other Means of Transport
• 30. Caravanserai or Inn
• 31. Implements of War
• 32. Assyrians in Battle
• 33. Weapons
• 34. Prisoners
• 35. Roman Soldier; Prison
• 36. Tombs
• 37. Mourning
• 38. Trees (1)
• 39. Trees (2)
• 40. Trees (3)
• 41. Trees and Bushes (4)
• 42. Plants
• 43. Animals (1)
• 44. Animals (2)
• 45. Locust, Ants and Gecko
• 46. Altars and Temples
• 47. Tabernacle
• 48. High Priest on the Day of Atonement
• 49. The Holy Place
• 50. The Temple Court
• 51. Temple of Herod According to Schick
• 52. Temple Enclosure and Citadel of Antonia
• 53. Holy Men, Phylactery
• 54. Synagogue at Capernaum
• 55. Idolatry (1)
• 56. Idolatry (2)
• 57. Coinage
• 58. Matrimony
• 59. Street Scenes
• Bibliography
• Copyright