Introduction

Historians and archaeologists in numerous research areas have long been studying food in its various spheres (temple, palace, dwelling). But when it comes to the Bible in general, and the Hebrew Bible in particular, research into food and the domestic sphere lags behind, with the exception of research into the kosher dietary laws and the sacrificial system, whose scholarship and literature is prolific and too extensive to list here in its entirety. More recently, a few scholars in both biblical studies and Syro-Palestinian archaeology have delved into either the realm of food or households. Borowski has focused on the husbandry and agriculture of ancient Israel, both textually and archaeologically; C. Meyers has extensively researched the domestic life of women in ancient Israel; and N. MacDonald has recently published two monographs on the ancient Israelite diet. Avraham Faust is one of the few Syro-Palestinian archaeologists who has published on rural settlements in ancient Israel, and J. Hardin's work on household archaeology in the southern Levant has inspired more research in this field.

Research on food and households is a subject area that one would think would be a natural combination and have numerous publications, but until recently this has not been the case. The greater purpose of this study is to research food preparation in both urban and rural domestic contexts both archaeologically and within the greater ancient Near Eastern world and apply this information to the Hebrew Bible with the hope of illuminating the domestic gastronomical daily life of the average ancient Judahite.