Reviews for Understanding Jewish History: Texts and Commentaries

The average rating for Understanding Jewish History: Texts and Commentaries based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2015-11-25 00:00:00 Luis Velasquez This was a challenging read. It's a text book, not a narrative, so know what you're getting into, but I found something valuable on every page. This book provides the cultural context for the stories of the Bible. It covers the Semitic peoples surrounding the Israelites. It covers the conquering cultures like the Phoenicians, Egyptians, and Babylonians and the similarities of their cults of worship (technical term) with that of Israel. It explains the important emphases on high places, temples, tents, sacrifices, priests, purity, Levites, war, families, marriages, languages, calendars, money, measurements, and probably a lot more that I'm forgetting. There is a layer of depth here that I wasn't quite prepared for. To get the most out of this book, I think the reader needs a good background in the Old Testament, the general narrative of Israel's history, and probably some familiarity with the Dead Sea Scrolls. But even without any of that, the book is written in such a straight forward manner that it's easy to follow along with all the theories the author considers before explaining, with evidence and logic, his own ideas. I highly recommend this book for serious Bible study, or if not this book then one a lot like it.

Review # 2 was written on 2008-06-19 00:00:00 Javier Sanchez An excellent book for very exacting scholars of the Old Testament. Vaux is very good about sharing his sources (all primary sources: royal receipts, correspondence, etc.) and also about explaining why would-be pet theories do not fit popular interpretations of certain passages. Its a good look at how the monarchy was established, functioned and eventually disappeared. It is especially good for comparing the later rulers in light of the tradition they came from. I got a little impatient with the intricacies of the different duties of the family leader (as in the Book of Ruth) but I appreciated the explanations on the mohair of married women, as compared to what we traditionally think of as a dowry........