"Many of us", wrote Mark Rutherford in The Revolution in Tanner's Lane, "have felt that we would give all our books if we could but see with our own eyes how a single day was passed by a single ancient Jewish, Greek, or Roman family; how the house was opened in the morning; how the meals were prepared; what was said; how the husband, wife, and children went about their work; what clothes they wore, and what were their amusements." The present book makes no claim to have attained this ideal of intimate portraiture; it attempts, rather, the wider but less searching task of presenting a panorama of Israelite life, as ordinary families knew it, from about 1250 to 586 B.C.<br><br>I have tried to write for all who are interested in the Old Testament (except, of course, the learned), but I have had particularly in mind boys and girls in the upper forms of secondary and public schools, students in training colleges, freshmen at universities, teachers, and, not least, that admirable kind of general reader who wishes to read the Bible and who knows from experience that it is wise to consult a guide-book before venturing abroad. To open the pages of the Old Testament is, indeed, to enter a foreign territory and its exploration is bound to be fruitless and frustrating, unless we discover by a little preliminary study what to expect, what to look for, and what kind of people we are likely to meet. We shall lose our bearings, if we read our Western civilization into the Old Testament and assume that the Israelites were exactly like ourselves except for their "Arab-type" clothes. A guide-book, it is almost superfluous to say, can never be a substitute for the personal exploration of the scene and society it describes. In fidelity to the terms of my present brief, I have been able to do no more than hint at the reasons for reading the Old Testament at all. 

Hardcover. Fair-good condition. Mildewed & dirty but binding strong.
221.9
Religion > Bible > Old Testament > Geography, history, chronology, persons of Old Testament lands in Old Testament times

BS620 .H4
Philosophy. Psychology. Religion: The Bible: Works about the Bible