Israelite Religion

“This fresh and timely synthesis combines van der Toorn’s own prodigious expertise with the best of contemporary scholarship. The result is judicious, sophisticated, and comprehensive—and will be indispensable for students and scholars alike.”—Molly Zahn, Yale Divinity School “With the careful eye of a historian and the sensibility of a storyteller, van der Toorn mines the clues in textual and material sources to reconstruct Israelite religion in all its variety, complexity, and foreignness. He masterfully loosens Israelite religion from the grip of anachronism and bias, revealing worldviews that are enigmatic yet logical in their own right. Refreshingly readable, up-to-date, and disorienting in all the best ways, Israelite Religion reveals the importance of letting the ancient sources and their contexts speak for themselves—and what we gain when we learn to listen.”—Sara Milstein, author of Making a Case: The Practical Roots of Biblical Law “In this wonderful study, Karel van der Toorn clearly and skillfully leads readers through the historical unfolding of Israelite religion. This is the work of a mature scholar at the top of his craft.”—J. Andrew Dearman, Fuller Theological Seminary “In this book, Karel van der Toorn provides an erudite and accessible synthesis of the history of ancient Israelite religion, embedded in its cultural, political, and social historical contexts. It includes a plethora of new ideas, but never loses sight of its overall subject.”—Konrad Schmid, University of Zurich “Using literary, historical, and archaeological sources, van der Toorn presents the reader with an extremely well-written, magisterial synthetic analysis of the history of the Israelite religion from its early beginnings until the first century CE.”—Emanuel Tov, Hebrew University of Jerusalem