Introduction

Much debate has taken place in recent years regarding what social history means and how one writes it. ¹ The difficulties encountered in the enterprise of writing social history of the ancient world are poignantly encapsulated in the title of a recent collection of essays edited by Aubert and Várhelyi (2005) “A Tall Order: Writing the Social History of the Ancient World.” Nevertheless, attempts at constructing social histories have been made; noteworthy in this regard is a social history of ancient Israel by McNutt (1999).