Marriage and Family in the Biblical World

Current debates about marriage and the family assume much about the history of these institutions.  But what do we really know about their social and ethical arrangements, especially during biblical times?  Placing the history of these institutions in context requires not only a study of biblical literature that traverses several millennia but also a grasp of extrabilbical literature and sources culled from several different cultural contexts.  In this book six experts working in their respective fields trace out the dynamic contours of marriage and family as undersood and practiced in Ancient Israel and the Near East, in Greek and Roman society, in second temple Judaism, and finally, in the New Testament.