Old Testament Resources Part 4: History and Culture

Looking NE from St. Peter’s to the old city and Mt. of Olives

This post of recommendations focuses on the history and culture of the Old Testament. I’ve bolded my simple choices for those who don’t want lots of detailed options.

First, my free accessible stuff online.

• My screencast on how rediscovering the history and culture around the Israelites has revolutionized our understanding of the Hebrew Bible.
• My Sperry fireside on reading the Hebrew Bible in context.
• My podcast on genres in the Hebrew Bible, including historical ones.
• My post on complexities of history in scripture.
• My OLD post on the nature of quotations/conversations in scripture.

Logos also offers some free stuff, like a Study Bible and Bible Dictionary. Again, Logos is a free app, you buy books and packages separately. I’ve starred the things available in Logos. (See my post here for instructions/demo and a follow-up here with another demo.)

Jehovah and the World of the Old Testament has an introduction to some of the history/culture, and is still $10 at Deseret Book. 

To learn more about all the peoples and civilizations around the Old Testament, like Egyptians, Hittites, Babylonians, etc., Arnold/Strawn, The World around the Old Testament: The People and Places of the Ancient Near East If you want to go deeper on this, you want Jack Sasson’s 4-volumes-in-2 Civilizations of the Ancient Near East.

Actual history books.

• *Hershel Shanks, ed. (This is the guy behind Biblical Archaeology Review) Ancient Israel: From Abraham to the Roman Destruction of the Temple
• Coogan, Oxford History of the Biblical World. This is also very accessible, and covers the New Testament period as well.
• Miller/Hayes, A History of Ancient Israel and Judah.
• For broader, more complicated history, either Van de Mieroop’s History of the Ancient Near East, c. 3000-323 or the 2-volume Kuhrt Ancient Near East 3000-330 BC. 

Physical and Social Structures

• King/Stager, Life in Biblical Israel; This heavily illustrated volume looks at how ancient Israelites lived, the materials of their daily lives, homes, food, agriculture, etc.
• Similarly, Benjamin/Mathews, Social World of Ancient Israel:1250-587 BCE elucidates the political and social structures of the day.
• Mathews, The Cultural World of the Bible: An Illustrated Guide to Manners and Customs
• * Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary series. This is the source of the notes for the Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible I’ve recommended.

Reference Works

These are organized by topic or some other logic, not book/chapter/verse. I’ve starred those available in Logos, since reference works in particular benefit from the tagging/searching/linking capabilities of Logos.

Bible and other Dictionaries

• The Oxford Companion to the Bible.
  • This is essentially a Bible Dictionary with some history and history of interpretation thrown in. It’s respectable, and it can be had used for $1.50 or so.
• * Anchor Bible Dictionary
  • After a change in publisher, this is now the Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary. It’s ecumenical, academic, and 7000+ pages,  but 25 yrs old at this point, and apparently out of print and expensive. I got mine on sale at Logos. (It’s currently on sale for $190 instead of 260. Remember, Logos itself is free. You can treat it like a supercharged Kindle and just buy individual books.)
• * IVP Dictionary of the Old Testament. 
  • This is a multi-volume Protestant series that is quite good, imo. It often leans conservative, but surprises me in good ways. You can buy a set or individual volumes, and there’s a New Testament counterpart as well. I also got this on deep sale at Logos, once upon a time. I keep my eyes open.

*Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible.  I bet you didn’t know there were enough of these in the Bible to merit an entire dictionary of almost a thousand pages 😉

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