Customs and Culture of the Bible
The Bible was written in cultures very different from our own. Explore customs, institutions, daily practices and figures of speech that help explain what biblical writers and their first readers would have understood.
188 customs found
Money Changers at the Temple
Money changing served practical needs in a pilgrimage economy in which worshipers arrived with different currencies and needed acceptable coinage for payments and offerings.
Primary Scripture: Mark 11:15-17
Mourning and Fasting as Public Acts
Fasting and mourning could be visible communal acts that communicated grief, repentance, crisis, or appeal rather than purely private devotional exercises.
Primary Scripture: Esther 4:1-3
Mourning Clothes and Mourning Customs
Mourning could be expressed publicly through distinctive clothing, torn garments, sackcloth, fasting, weeping, lamentation, and changes in normal grooming or activity.
Primary Scripture: Genesis 37:34-35
Names and Naming at Birth
Names in the biblical world often expressed family memory, circumstances of birth, hope, thanksgiving, identity, or a theological message.
Primary Scripture: Luke 1:57-66
Nazirite Vow
A Nazirite voluntarily entered a special period of dedication marked by abstaining from grape products, avoiding corpse impurity, and not cutting the hair.
Primary Scripture: Numbers 6:1-21
Night Watches and Keeping Watch
Nighttime could be divided into watches during which guards, soldiers, shepherds, or others remained awake. Scripture also uses watchfulness as a powerful metaphor.
Primary Scripture: Mark 13:35-37
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