• How did the Exile change Israel's religious life?
• Why would Lot even think of throwing his daughters to a mob?
• What exactly were the differences between Herodians, Sadducees, Pharisees, and Essenes?

Lots of questions crop up when you read the Bible. For answers, you need insight into the Bible's culture, its people and how they lived.

What people wore, what they ate, what they built, how they exercised justice, how they mourned, how they viewed family and legal customs—all are "manners and customs" and all vary from period to period throughout Israel's history.

Fortunately, this book is a lot more than just nice pictures—although there are a lot of those, too. Each chapter furnishes an introduction to the political and physical setting of the period in Israel's history and outlines the basic structure of its social world. Then specific scenes drawn from the biblical text are studied in a way that sheds light on the daily life of the people of that time. Drawing from a variety of sources to recreate the society of ancient Israel—extrabiblical sources and archaeological data as well as the biblical text itself—Dr. Matthews helps the reader to see the ancient world of Israel as never before. Once seen in this way, it will never look the same again.

Now in a new, revised edition, Dr. Matthews offers even more helpful insights into the biblical world. Over a hundred Scripture passages have been placed alongside the text to complement the discussion and to keep the relevant biblical passages in view. More than twenty new illustrations and photos help to give an even better "feel" for the world of Abraham, David, Jesus, and Paul.