Exploring the Religion of Ancient Israel

'What did people such as priests and prophets do in Israel? How were they chosen and trained? How did ordinary people's relationship with God work out? This volume is a fine user-friendly guide to what we can learn about such questions from the Bible, from archaeology and from current scholarly theory.'John Goldingay, Professor Emeritus of Old Testament, Fuller Theological SeminaryExploring the Religion of Ancient Israel consists of two parts.The first explores the major religious offices mentioned in the Old Testament, including prophets, priests, sages and kings. As well as considering what these key people said and did, the author traces the process someone might have gone through to become recognised as a prophet, priest or sage, and where you would have had to go in ancient Israel if you wanted to locate someone who held one of these offices.In the second part the focus is on the religious beliefs and practices of the "common" people as this was the group that made up the vast majority of ancient Israel's population.