Image Details

COPYRIGHT LAWRENCE E. STAGER; ILLUSTRATION BY C.S. ALEXANDER, AS IN LIFE IN BIBLICAL ISRAEL, ILL. 10; COURTESY OF HARVARD MUSEUM OF THE ANCIENT NEAR EAST

ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE EVERYDAY. In recent decades, biblical archaeology has become increasingly interested in the everyday lives and activities of common people in the biblical world. This idyllic illustration shows what a bet ’ab (“house of the father”)—the fundamental family and social unit in the biblical world—might have looked like in ancient Israel. The extended family would have lived in one or more residential buildings, with the outside area being used as a space in which to perform the day’s activities: grinding flour, tending animals, and processing and storing goods.