Illuminating Everyday Life in the Biblical World
Light from the Ground: Ancient Oil Lamps and the People Who Lit Them
Brent D. Hoefling
K. Lynn Lewis, Editor
Scott Stripling, Foreword
Light from the Ground: Ancient Oil Lamps and the People Who Lit Them is an illustrated introduction to ancient oil lamp typology, domestic illumination, and the archaeology of everyday life in the biblical world, from the Early Bronze Age (3200 BC) through the Islamic period (AD 900). It centers on the Hoefling Antiquities Collection, more than fifty legally acquired lamps and related objects obtained from licensed dealers in the Old City of Jerusalem between 2019 and 2026. Rare pieces include a Middle Bronze four-nozzle bowl lamp, a Shabbat lamp, a bronze Roman hanging lamp with its original chain, a Roman glass hanging lamp, a ceramic lantern, and a limestone lamp mold.
The oil lamp is among the most frequently recovered artifacts in the ancient Levant and one of the most consistently referenced objects in Scripture, yet it is routinely misunderstood and mistranslated. English versions, including the King James, render the Hebrew nēr and the Greek lychnos as "candle" in a world without candles. This book corrects the record accessibly, moving from lamp technology and pottery manufacture through fuel, wicks, lanterns, typology, dating methods, and the ethics of collecting, to the catalog itself, then into the tomb, and finally into a biblical-theological reflection on what the lamp meant to the people who lit one every night.
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