The Biblical World

The Biblical World is a comprehensive guide to the contents, historical settings, and social context of the Bible. This new edition is updated with several new chapters as well as a new section on biblical interpretation.

Contributions from leading scholars in the field present wide-ranging views not just of biblical materials and their literary and linguistic context, but also of the social institutions, history and archaeology, and religious concepts. New chapters cover topics such as the priesthood and festivals, creation and covenant, ethics, and family life, while a new section on biblical interpretation discusses Jewish and Christian bible translation and key thematic emphases, and modern reader-response and cultural approaches.

This revised edition of The Biblical World offers an up-to-date and thorough survey of the Bible and its world, and will continue to be an invaluable resource for students and scholars of the Hebrew Bible and New Testament and their history and interpretation, as well as anyone working on the societies, religions, and political and cultural institutions that created and influenced these texts.

Katharine J. Dell is Reader in Old Testament Literature and Theology at the Faculty of Divinity in the University of Cambridge, UK, and Fellow of St Catharine's College. She has written extensively on the Wisdom literature of the Old Testament including The Book of Proverbs in Social and Theological Context (2008), Interpreting Ecclesiastes: Readers Old and New (2013), and The Solomonic Corpus of 'Wisdom' and its Influence (2020); and has also written introductory textbooks including, Who Needs the Old Testament?: Its Enduring Appeal and Why the New Atheists Don't Get It (2017).