Bibliography

Alter, Robert. The Art of Biblical Narrative. New York: Basic Books, 1981.

Ben-Amos, Dan. “Toward a Definition of Folklore in Context.” Journal of American Folklore 84, no. 331 (1971): 3–15.

Dundes, Alan. Holy Writ as Oral Lit: The Bible as Folklore. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999.

———. Interpreting Folklore. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1980.

Frazer, James George. Folklore in the Old Testament: Studies in Comparative Religion, Legend and Law. Vol. 1. London: Macmillan, 1919.

Gunkel, Hermann. The Folktale in the Old Testament. Sheffield: Almond, 1987.

———. Genesis. Translated by M. Biddle. Mercer Library of Biblical Studies. Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 1997.

Kirkpatrick, Patricia G. The Old Testament and Folklore Study. JSOT Supplement 62. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1988.

Layton, Robert. “Folklore and World View.” Pages 24–32 in Archaeology and Folklore. Edited by Amy Gazin-Schwartz and Cornelius J. Holtorf. Theoretical Archaeology Group. London: Routledge, 1999.

Niditch, Susan. Folklore and the Hebrew Bible. Guides to Biblical Scholarship. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993.

Propp, Vladimir. Theory and History of Folklore. Translated by Ariadna Y. Martin and Richard P. Martin. Edited by Anatoly Liberman. Theory and History of Literature 5. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984.

Rogerson, J. W. Myth in Old Testament Interpretation. Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 134. Berlin: DeGruyter, 1974.

Sims, Martha C., and Martine Stephens. Living Folklore: An Introduction to the Study of People and Their Traditions. Logan: Utah State University Press, 2005.

Wood, Irving Francis. “Folk-tales in Old Testament Narrative.” Journal of Biblical Literature 28, no. 1 (1909): 34–41.

Joshua A. Crutchfield with Douglas Estes

Food Examines the sources and preparation methods of food in the Bible.

Introduction

The foods that compose the balance of diet in the ancient Near East included grain (usually in the form of bread), olive oil, and wine. This so-called “Mediterranean triad” was supplemented by fruits, vegetables, legumes, dairy, and meat, all of which varied in caloric contribution depending on seasons, microclimates, social and economic standing, shifting geo-political realities, and annual rainfall. Aside from biblical evidence, current knowledge on the type of foods available to the people of ancient Israel is available through a variety of means, including:

• Archaeological evidence in the form of durable food scraps (e.g., olive pits, animal bones) and physical structures associated with production and storage of staple foods (e.g., olive presses, bread ovens, etc.)

• Comparative evidence from neighboring (e.g., Syrian or Egyptian) or contemporary (Bronze Age, Roman, Byzantine) cultures

• The anthropological study of modern pastoralists

• Paleopathological studies of human remains, which can help us understand both the makeup and adequacy of the foods available to those who lived in Palestine in antiquity.

Relying on just one of these methods provides a limited and inaccurate understanding of ancient Israelites’ diet. This is particularly true for biblical evidence. The biblical texts are not chiefly interested in painting a clear portrait of the common diet, and the composition history of these texts is complex and subject to scholarly revision. Additionally, readers must consider the rhetorical function that food can play within the narrative. For example, meat carries greater ideological weight in texts than is warranted by its real contribution to the diet of the average inhabitant of the Levant. Meat is the archetypal sacrificial and festal food, whether evidenced in Abel’s offering in Genesis (Gen 4:2–5), the Passover (Exod 12:6–14), or the fatted calf in the parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:23–24). While our most current evidence suggests that ancient Israelites ate more meat than scholars of the late nineteenth century believed, meat made a relatively minor contribution to the diet of most people. Recent attempts to estimate meat consumption in multiple Iron Age sites, for example, has led to estimates of between 30 and 70 grams of meat consumption per person per day (Rosen, “Subsistence Economy,” 156–85; Sasson, “Pastoral Component,” 3–51). With this amount, meat was neither an unknown luxury nor the cornerstone of the average diet.

Similarly, we cannot give material evidence more weight than it deserves. Many variables limit the accuracy of efforts to scientifically determine the diet of the southern Levant. Statistical models and archaeological evidence demonstrates that, depending on local conditions, ancients employed a mixed farming strategy to minimize the risks of food shortages. Evidence also shows that ancients kept animals more for their wool (sheep), dairy (goats), or traction (cattle) than for meat (MacDonald, What, 43–49).

The methods mentioned above have resulted in the following list of foods that people consumed in biblical times:

• grain (wheat flour), usually in the form of breads

• olive oil

• wine and grapes

• vegetables (though these are not highly regarded, compare Num 11:3)

• lentils

• broad (fava) beans

• field peas

• chickpeas

• vetch

• fenugreek leaves

• figs

• sycamore figs

• dates

• pomegranate

• apples (uncertain)

• almonds

• pistachios

• lamb or mutton

• goat

• beef

• gazelle

• deer

• fresh milk

• cheese

• ghee

• fowl, both domesticated and wild of various kinds

• fish, both fresh and preserved

Access to these foods likely depended on location and socio-economic differences. Thus, it is difficult to say what foods would have made up the diets of ordinary people. Some people would have had greater access to fish, while pastoralists would have had greater access to dairy. A settled agriculturalist likely would have traded the varied diet of a pastoralist for a more secure one dependent on grain.