Abstract
This four-volume dictionary, comprising over 100 entries by numerous con-tributors, offers an excellent introduction to basic aspects of everyday life in the biblical communities and their surrounding cultures from 2000 bce to ca. 600 ce. Edwin Yamauchi, Emeritus Professor of History at Miami University, Ohio, is the chief editor and author of the lion's share of articles in each volume. Co-editor Marvin R. Wilson is Professor of Bibli-cal and Theological Studies at Gordon College, Wenham, MA.
The volumes are arranged alphabeti-cally. Each volume opens with a list of ab-breviations, an overview of the pertinent “Periods, Ages, and Dates,” and an Introduction to the series. Similar in focus and format to the renowned Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum (Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 1950–), each individual entry opens with a brief definition of the topic, followed by information on its ap-pearances in Old and New Testaments, Near Eastern world, Greco-Roman world, Jewish world, and Christian world. An extensive, up-to-date bibliography of predominantly English-language research and a brief list of cross-references conclude each entry. Each volume ends with a “select bibliography” of general resources and a small selection of “figures” (photos, sketches).
The topics, ranging in length from five to more than 20 pages, treat diverse, basic, yet often neglected, aspects of ancient Circum-Mediterranean and Near Eastern political and domestic life, technology, economic and social activities, culture and religion. The following complete listing of all entries reveals the range and content of the 115 essays. The 39 entries of volume one range from “abortion” to “dance” and additionally include adoption, adultery, age & the aged, agriculture, alcoholic beverages, animal husbandry, aphrodisiacs & erotic spells, aqueducts & water supply, archives, armies, art, astrol-ogy, athletics, banks & loans, banquets, barbers & beards, baths & bathing, beg-gars & alms, bellows & furnaces, birds, boats & ships, bones & objects of bone, bottles & glass, bribery, butchers & meat, calendars, camels, celibacy, census, ce-ramics & pottery, childbirth & children, cities, citizens & aliens, clothing, communications & messengers, contraception & control of births, and cosmetics.
The 25 topics of volume two comprise death & afterlife, demons, dentistry & teeth, diseases & plagues, divination & sortition, divorce, dogs, donkeys & mules, doors & keys, drama & theaters, dreams, dwellings, dyeing, education, eunuchs, fish & fishing, food consumption, food production, furniture, games & gambling, hair, harbors, heating & lighting, horses, and human sacrifice.
The 25 entries of volume three include incense, infanticide and exposure, insects, ivory, jewelry, kisses & embraces, laundry & fullers, laws & crimes, leather, libraries & books, literacy, magic, marriage, medicine & physicians, medium of exchange, menstruation, metallurgy, military technology & tactics, milk & milk products, mining, mourning & weeping, music, names, nursing & wet nurses.
The 26 entries of volume four comprise: oaths & vows, palaces, perfumes, plants & flowers, police & prisons, prostitution, purity & impurity, rape, samesex relations, sanitation, seals, slavery, spectacles, taxation, textiles, threshing & winnowing, time, tools & utensils, trade, trees, virgins & virginity, viticulture, wealth & poverty, weapons, widows & orphans, wild animals & hunting.
Each entry mentions relevant terms in original languages and illustrative primary texts, along with a basic bibliography—a procedure that provides an instructive starting point for further investigation. To Yam-auchi's excellent essay on magic can now be added the important recent survey by Marco Frenschkowski, Magie im antiken Christentum (Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 2016).
With such abundance it may seem un-appreciative to quibble about what is not included, but I'll venture to suggest sev-eral topics that might be added or more fully developed in future editions. These would include alms & almsgiving, amulets and apotropaics, associations, burial cus-toms, class and class structures, climate, coinage, deviance, emotions, evil eye, family and household, health & illness, hospitality, ingroups & outgroups, judicial systems, labor & divisions of labor, natural disasters, occupations, patronage & clientism, poverty & wealth, prayer, prejudice, prices & wages, ritual, sanitation, status and rank, technology, temples & places of worship, and witchcraft.
This splendid reference tool is a sig-nificant achievement in the clarification of everyday realities in biblical and Circum-Mediterranean antiquity. We owe the editors and contributors a hearty “well done!” and Hendrickson an enthusiastic “bravo!” for making it available at a man-ageable price, especially to those of limited means. The utility and extremely modest price ($24.95 per volume) of this instructive reference tool should guarantee it well-thumbed usage in the libraries of students, scholars, pastors, and general readers.