Recent Interpretations of Ancient Israelite Religion‪.‬

There is, perhaps, no more challenging undertaking than the attempt to describe in detail the religion of ancient Israel. This situation results not only from the complexities inherent in that religion and its attendant cult but also from the myriad of methodologies and disciplines through which scholars have filtered the subject matter. Recent assessments of the efficacy of both specialized and more wide-ranging approaches have suggested serious shortcomings in many areas, including the lack of clear statements regarding method and theory, the failure to establish a productive, interdisciplinary dialogue, and the non-critical use of certain branches of learning. One recently published collection of essays provides an especially helpful summary of the figures, issues, and disparate interpretations involved in the current state of scholarship addressing Israelite religion. That volume is Sacred Time, Sacred Place: Archaeology and the Religion of Israel, edited by Barry M. Gittlen, which presents a valuable collection of essays drawn from four successive years (1993-96) of a program unit dedicated to the archaeology of ancient Israelite religion held at the annual meeting of the American Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR). The twelve articles included in the book, written by ten authors, span four principal areas of concern: "Charting the Course: The Relationship between Text and Artifact" (three essays); "Prayers in Clay: A Multidisciplinary Approach to Figurines" (two essays); "The Mythology of Sacred Space: Structure and Structuralism" (four essays); and "Death in the Life of Israel" (three essays). The volume includes comprehensive indexes of authors and Scripture references but does not provide a master bibliography, and the individual essays are inconsistent in this regard. The reader might also benefit from knowing the specific year of each presentation in the ASOR program as a means of gauging the progress of research relating to the stated topics. Judging from the dates of the sources cited, it appears that some essays were updated prior to publication while others were not. The editor hopes that, by combining "new methods of examining textual data" and "the latest archaeological data" (p. xii), the collection will "clearly assess and understand the problems, chart new approaches to the issues, and reach possible new conclusions" (p. xi). The overarching thesis holds that a dialectic between scholars dealing with archaeological remains, texts, and analogy "is basic to the reconstruction of ancient societies in any time and place" (p. xi), and that early Israel is no exception.