A comprehensive guide to the contents, historical settings, and social context of the Bible. This new edition is updated with several new chapters as well as a new section on biblical interpretation.

Katharine J. Dell is Reader in Old Testament Literature and Theology at the Faculty of Divinity in the University of Cambridge, UK, and Fellow of St Catharine's College. She has written extensively on the Wisdom literature of the Old Testament including The Book of Proverbs in Social and Theological Context (2008), Interpreting Ecclesiastes: Readers Old and New (2013), and The Solomonic Corpus of 'Wisdom' and its Influence (2020); and has also written introductory textbooks including, Who Needs the Old Testament?: Its Enduring Appeal and Why the New Atheists Don't Get It (2017).

Introduction 1. The Old Testament/Hebrew Bible 2. The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha 3. The Dead Sea Scrolls 4. The New Testament 5. Early Christian Apocrypha 6. Law 7. Historiography 8. Prophecy 9. Wisdom 10. Apocalypticism 11. The Jewish/Hellenistic novel 12. The Gospels and Acts 13. Letters in the New Testament in the Greco-Roman world 14. Cuneiform myths and epics in the Ancient Near East 15. The Hebrew and Aramaic languages 16. The Greek language 17. Text and versions: the Old Testament 18. Text and versions: the New Testament 19. Hebrew inscriptions 20. The Cairo Genizah 21. Greek and Roman inscriptions: Jewish inscriptions 22. Christian inscriptions in a (post-)biblical world 23. Biblical archaeology 24. Palestine during the Bronze Age 25. Palestine during the Iron Age 26. Israel's ancestors: the patriarchs and matriarchs 27. Israel at the time of the united monarchy: David and Solomon 28. Exile, migration, and diaspora after the fall of Jerusalem in the sixth century BCE 29. Israel under Persia and Greece 30. Judaea under Roman rule: 63 BCE-135 CE 31. Israel's neighbours 32. Religion in Israel: pre-exile and in exile 33. Warfare 34. Priesthood and festivals 35. The Arts: representational (architecture, artefacts), performative (music, drama), literary (poetry, psalmody) 36: Family and everyday life 37. Judaism at the turn of the era 38. The first churches: social life 39. The first churches: religious practices 4. Creation and covenant 41. Salvation in Jewish thought 42. Salvation in Christian thought 43. Ethics 44. New Testament christology: interpretations of the identity and role of Jesus 45. Interpretations of the identity and role of Paul 46. Death and afterlife 47. Purity and sacrifice 48. Jewish Bible translations 49. Jewish Bible interpretation 50. Christian Bible translation 51. Early Christian biblical interpretation 52. Modern biblical interpretation 53. Reader-response criticism and recent readers 54. The Bible in contemporary culture and society