What Did the Ancient Israelites Eat?: Diet in Biblical TimesWhat food did the ancient Israelites eat, and how much of it did they consume? That's a seemingly simple question, but it's actually a complex topic. In this fascinating book Nathan MacDonald carefully sifts through all the relevant evidence -- biblical, archaeological, anthropological, environmental -- to uncover what the people of biblical times really ate and how healthy (or unhealthy) it was. Engagingly written for general readers, What Did the Ancient Israelites Eat? is nonetheless the fruit of extensive scholarly research; the book's substantial bibliography and endnotes point interested readers to a host of original sources. Including an archaeological timeline and three detailed maps, the book concludes by analyzing a number of contemporary books that advocate a return to "biblical" eating. Anyone who reads MacDonald's responsible study will never read a "biblical diet" book in the same way again. |
Contents
How Well Did the Israelites Eat? | 41 |
Food Shortage and Famine | 57 |
Conclusion | 89 |
endnotes | 102 |
bibliography | 133 |
| 148 | |
Common terms and phrases
Agriculture in Ancient ancient Israel Ancient Near East ancient Palestine animal bones Archaeological Excavations Archaeozoological areas Ashkelon barley Beer-Sheba Ben-Tor Bible biblical diets biblical texts Borowski bread Broshi Cambridge University Press caprovines cattle cereals chapter climate consumed crops cultivation Deut Deuteronomy Diet of Palestine dietary Early Iron Age economy edited Ekron elite environment famine Faunal Remains fish flowing with milk fruit goats grain Hebrew University herd Hesban Hesse Highlands of Canaan History Human Skeletal Remains husbandry Iron Age Israel Antiquities Authority Izbet Jerusalem Jezreel Valley Jordan kill-off L. K. Horwitz Lachish Land Flowing Late Bronze Age Lernau Levant Mazar meat consumption Mesopotamia Michal milk and honey Negev Nomadism Old Testament olive Oxford paleopathology Palestine patterns percent Philistine population production Qedem rain rainfall Rosen Samaria Sasson sheep Sheffield Shephelah significant Studies suggests Tel Aviv University tion vegetables villages vine Wapnish wheat wine Zohary and Hopf