Earthly crucibles of a people's belief

This is a fascinating account of how the very different local environments the ancient Israelites encountered shaped their faith and the contents of their Scriptures. It is about how their wanderings moulded and changed their culture from a polytheistic beginning to the monotheism of the Bible.

The five natural domains that are recognised are the humid highlands, the semi-arid steppes, the river valleys, the sea coasts and the deserts. To these are added the urban and the exile domains. The experience of the Israelites included periods of existence in each of these seven environments.

Life for the pre-Israelites or Hebrew ancestors began in the fertile floodplains of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers fed by the annual flooding from the humid highlands. This Eden, which forms part of the region that has been termed the Fertile Crescent, was indeed a paradise until it was ruined by excess human intervention. While living in the fertile floodplain, the people were under the influence of the Mesopotamians, and the epic of Gilgamesh also contains an account similar to the biblical flood of Noah. Eventually the people moved on from Eden, perhaps because the irrigation canals became clogged with silt, the soil became saline and invaders drove them out of their paradise.

The next period, at the time of the Patriarchs, took place in the semi-arid steppes of Canaan, the region in which sheep, goats and other species of livestock were domesticated. As a result, the people lived a semi-nomadic pastoral life. In this period a central form of government did not work and a system of local clans developed where there was both hospitality and clan rivalry. However, the semi-arid steppes are subject to periods of extreme drought, so from time to time the nomads were forced to seek greener pastures.

This inevitably led them to the riverine domain of Egypt. The Bible tells how Abraham had to go there for help during a famine and how later his descendants landed up there for an extended period. Life in the floodplain of the Nile varied because in some years the summer flooding was good for agriculture, but in others there was drought. It was necessary to store up supplies in the years of plenty to survive the periods of drought, as told in Joseph's interpretation of Pharaoh's dream.

Daniel Hillel suggests that the first plague inflicted on the Egyptians occurred when the river became saturated with silt and stagnant, as happens in times of low flow. This in turn could quickly lead to the other biblical plagues. The result was that the Hebrews moved on into the desert domain of Sinai, where a strong leadership was needed to keep them together. This was provided by Moses and an increasingly strong and all-powerful God, and as a result they eventually returned to the semi-arid steppes of Canaan.

From there, they had contact with the coastal domain, where they came under the influence of the Phoenicians and the Philistines. This drove them to a strong monarchy and the establishment of an urban domain in Jerusalem and other towns. However, disputes between the different tribes opened up their weaknesses and led to the final domain, that of exile in Babylon. The strong belief in their one God that had developed over many centuries of wandering enabled them to hold together and eventually re-establish residence in their homeland. Each of these periods and each different domain eventually helped to formulate their beliefs and the Scriptures that controlled them.

It is good to have the Bible interpreted by an environmental scientist rather than a theologian. It results in many new insights about how both the wanderings and the influence of the other cultures they encountered shaped the Jewish people in such a way that their identity has survived over a remarkably long period because they stuck firmly to their belief in their one God.

The central hypothesis of this book - that the experiences of the Hebrew peoples with these changing ecological situations resulted in their particular brand of monotheism - is convincingly argued. Here is an example of how nature has helped to form a society.

This book - in addition to its main theme of the influence of the local ecology on the development of the Jewish race - is also a scholarly and most readable account of biblical history. It is well illustrated and has many useful text boxes that contribute background information. It is a book that should be of equal interest to the student of ecology and the student of theology.

Sir Ghillean Prance is scientific director of the Eden Project.