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Manners & Customs

Cooking Meat

How meat was cooked and served. The method of preparing meat has thus been described: Roasting on a spit was perhaps the oldest way of cooking flesh, but less common among the Israelites than boiling, roast flesh being used as a rule only by the rich and better classes, as is still the case in the East.28 The servants of Eli's sons said to those ...

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Doors and Gates

THE DOOR AND THE PORCH Location and appearance of the door. The door or gate was located in the middle of the front side of the house. This entrance was usually so arranged that nobody could see into it from the street. Sometimes a wall was built in front of it to serve this purpose. Oriental gates, or large doors often have small doors like a pan...

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Slaves of Christ

New Testament use of the word slave in relation to CHRIST. In view of the way slaves were so often treated in the first century, it is remarkable that the Apostles again and again called themselves the slaves, of CHRIST. Paul refers to himself thus (Romans 1:1 and Philippians 1:1). James, Peter, and Jude do the same thing (James 1:1; II Peter 1:1; ...

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Furniture

FURNISHINGS OF THE HOUSE The furnishings of a one-room Palestinian house were and still are very simple. Mats and cushions are in use to sit on by day. and carpets or mats are slept on at night. There will be vessels of clay for household needs, with perhaps some cooking utensils of metal. There will be a chest for storing bedding, a lamp either p...

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Fuel for Fires

The fuel used. The peasant often uses dried dung as fuel for his fire. Some of the poorer classes use this themselves, and sell the sticks they find to those who can afford to buy them.28 A reference in the prophecy of Ezekiel indicates this use of fuel was common in Bible times (see Ezekiel 4:15). In the Orient fuel is usually so scarce that dri...

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Baking Bread and Ovens

Baking of bread. The most primitive method of baking bread was the laying of cakes of dough on heated stones.11 A Scriptural example of this is from the experience of Elijah. (I Kings 19:6): "And he looked, and, behold, there was a cake baken on the coals, and a cruse of water at his head." Another simple method of baking is the digging in the gr...

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Eggs

EGGS Sometime between the days of Elijah and the time of CHRIST the domestic fowl and the everyday use of eggs was introduced into Israel.30 There would seem to be one early Old Testament reference to what might be the egg of a hen. It is Job 6:6: "Is there any taste in the white of an egg?" We know that the use of eggs, among the Galileans aroun...

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Roof Materials

LETTING THE SICK MAN THROUGH THE ROOF TO JESUS A knowledge of the Oriental house is necessary in order to understand the story of the palsied man, who was let down through a hole in the roof, in order to get him to JESUS to be healed. Mark and Luke both give this aspect of the story. Mark says: "They uncovered the roof where he was: and when they ...

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Tent Material

TENT MATERIAL The Bedouin's home is his tent, which is made of black goat's hair. He calls it beit sha'ar, i.e., "house of hair." It is made of coarse, heavy fabric, and serves to protect the family in winter from the cold winds; in the summer the sides are usually lifted, and the tent serves as a sunshade.3 This goat's hair cloth that is used in...

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Sleeping and Beds

SLEEPING ARRANGEMENTS The Parable of the Importunate Friend which JESUS told, if understood in the light of an Oriental one-room house, will give information about sleeping arrangements. "And he said unto them, Which of you shall have a friend, and shall go unto him at midnight, and say unto him, Friend, lend me three loaves; for a friend of mine...

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