This essay aims to provide a methodological framework for the application of zooarchaeology to the study of Israelite religion for the purpose of providing an overview of this growing subfield for the non-specialist and for inviting further conversation among practitioners. Definitions of “zooarchaeology” and “Israelite religion” are explored and the aim of reconstructing practices of Yahweh-centric religion is described. A methodology is suggested through a series of questions that may be applied to explorations of faunal remains, including those related to context, excavation technique and analysis, and engagement with the Hebrew Bible. The essay concludes with an illustration from Tel Dan and affirmation of integrated methodologies that critically engage archaeological and textual data to form new syntheses.

This article supports the hypothesis that the feast described in Amos 6.4-7 was a religious event, even a marzea banquet. The loungers' practice of drinking from mizraq vessels is singled out as a definitively syncretistic practice adopted from the nations around them. Epigraphic and iconographic evidence is used to illustrate the prevalence of drinking from ritual vessels at cultic banquets in the ancient Near East, thus explaining the ready incorporation of such a custom by the Samarian elite and bringing greater clarity to Amos's denouncement.

This chapter describes the “sacrificial animal” of the “fellowship offering” (šǝlāmîm) in ancient Israel, focusing on the various activities surrounding its selection, slaughter, associated rituals, butchering, distribution, preparation, and consumption. Biblical texts from the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament in its various forms (focusing on the Masoretic Hebrew tradition and with special attention to the Septuagintal texts as well) and the available archaeological sources for Israelite temple sacrifice (focusing on Tel Dan in northern Israel) are synthesized to reconstruct details about this Israelite sacrifice as it might have been practiced during the period of the Hebrew kingdoms during the first half of the 1st millennium BC. The aim is to describe the “sacrificial animal” of the šǝlāmîm in a way that will be useful for Classicists as a point of comparison between Israelite and Greek sacrificial systems.