In this new study, distinguished biblical scholar James L. Crenshaw investigates both the pragmatic hows and the philosophical whys of education in ancient Israel and its surroundings. Asking questions as basic as "Who were the teachers and students, and from what segment of Israelite society did they come?" and "How did instructors interest young people in the things they had to say?, " Crenshaw considers the institutions and practices of the ancient Israelite educational system. He also examines the beginnings of literacy in the Ancient Near East, explores how Israel and its neighbors made the transformation from an oral to a written culture, and explores the literary works that constituted the canon of this distant culture.
Excerpt from Education in Ancient Israel: From Earliest Times to 70 A. D Most treatments of Hebrew education available in English are either out of date or inadequate. The longer one studies the origins of modem education the more difficult does he find it to explain the meagerness of the accounts of Hebrew education thus far presented. Authors of educational histories who have felt it incumbent upon them to include in their treatment of Greek education a discussion of music, dancing, physical and military training, have omitted these and other equally important topics from their discussions of Hebrew education. The fact that the information concerning these phases of ancient Hebrew education is in many cases meager and incomplete is no reason for failing to present such data as are available. The following account is, I believe, the first attempt in English to give education in Ancient Israel any such broad treatment as has long been accorded to that of other ancient peoples. There is no people whose history presents more difficulties, and none which leaves more room for the play of the personal equation of the writer. It is not to be expected that all the positions presented in this little volume will commend themselves to every reader. It is not offered in any sense as an apologetic of any theory of Hebrew history. Its aim is set forth in the statement of its problem (see page 4). It is hoped that whatever may be its defects it will lead the reader to see that the environment in which the native genius of the Hebrews ripened was a rich and varied one, and that the educative influences were many, not few. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
"An emerging field of study that explores the Hispanic minority in the United States, Latino Studies is enriched by an interdisciplinary perspective. Historians, sociologists, anthropologists, political scientists, demographers, linguists, as well as religion, ethnicity, and culture scholars, among others, bring a varied, multifaceted approach to the understanding of a people whose roots are all over the Americas and whose permanent home is north of the Rio Grande. Oxford Bibliographies in Latino Studies offers an authoritative, trustworthy, and up-to-date intellectual map to this ever-changing discipline."--Editorial page.
Among the many religious acts condemned in the Hebrew Bible, child sacrifice stands out as particularly horrifying. The idea that any group of people would willingly sacrifice their own children to their god(s) is so contrary to modern moral sensibilities that it is difficult to imagine that such a practice could have ever existed. Nonetheless, the existence of biblical condemnation of these rites attests to the fact that some ancient Israelites in fact did sacrifice their children. Indeed, a close reading of the evidence—biblical, archaeological, epigraphic, etc.—indicates that there are at least three different types of Israelite child sacrifice, each with its own history, purpose, and function. In addition to examining the historical reality of Israelite child sacrifice, Dewrell’s study also explores the biblical rhetoric condemning the practice. While nearly every tradition preserved in the Hebrew Bible rejects child sacrifice as abominable to Yahweh, the rhetorical strategies employed by the biblical writers vary to a surprising degree. Thus, even in arguing against the practice of child sacrifice, the biblical writers themselves often disagreed concerning why Yahweh condemned the rites and why they came to exist in the first place.
