The Companion to Ancient Israel offers an innovative overview of ancient Israelite culture and history, richly informed by a variety of approaches and fields. Distinguished scholars provide original contributions that explore the tradition in all its complexity, multiplicity and diversity.

• A methodologically sophisticated overview of ancient Israelite culture that provides insights into  political and social history, culture, and methodology
• Explores what we can say about the cultures and history of the people of Israel and Judah, but also investigates how we know what we know
• Presents fresh insights, richly informed by a variety of approaches and fields
• Delves into ‘religion as lived,’ an approach that asks about the everyday lives of ordinary people and the material cultures that they construct and experience
• Each essay is an original contribution to the subject

Susan Niditch is Samuel Green Professor of Religion at Amherst College. Her research and teaching interests include the study of ancient Israelite literature from the perspectives of the comparative and interdisciplinary fields of folklore and oral studies; biblical ethics with special interests in war, gender, and the body; the reception history of the Bible; and study of the rich symbolic media of biblical ritual texts. Recent publications include Judges: A Commentary (2008)and My Brother Esau Is a Hairy Man: Hair and Identity in Ancient Israel (2008). Her current project deals with personal religion and late biblical literature.