New Manners & Customs of the Bible

James Midwinter Freeman

Jan 1998 · Bridge Logos Foundation

About this ebook

For over 100 years, Freeman's Manners and Customs of the Bible has been the serious Bible student's choice.

Short of enrolling in a course in ancient Hebrew civilization, The New Manners & Customs of the Bible is the quickest, easiest, and most enjoyable way to understand the people and culture of the Bible. It is an invaluable key to unlocking a complete and accurate understanding of Scripture that is often hidden in ancient Hebrew culture.

Do you know, for example:

What significance earrings had in Biblical times?
What the sources were for the waters for Noah's Flood?
What Jesus really meant by the "eye of the needle"?
What it means for Christ to wear "many crowns"?
What Paul was referring to by a "triumphal procession"?
What the differences are between a modern and a Biblical wedding celebration?

All these questions and hundreds more are answered in The New Manners & Customs of the Bible. It's a reference book that belongs on the bookshelf of every earnest Bible student and teacher.

Ratings and reviews

I bought this new copy, having enjoyed the older version. The new one is rife with mechanical and informational errors. It looks like someone wrote it in a hurry. Get the older one if you can.

About the author

James Midwinter Freeman (1827-1900) was an American clergyman and writer. Born in New York City, he was educated at Wesleyan University and Mount Union College. He studied Latin, Greek, German, and Hebrew throughout his lifetime. Early in his career, Freeman was a printer and then a teacher, when he was called to ministry. In 1850, at age twenty-three, he was admitted to the New Jersey Conference of Methodist Episcopal Church. He received full membership and was ordained a deacon two years later. In 1854, Freeman was ordained an elder. He served as a pastor for twenty-three years, mainly throughout New Jersey. Freeman brought many to Christ during the great religious awakening of 1857 and 1858. In a memorial for the 1900 minutes of the church's Newark Conference, J. L. Hurlbut wrote, "He seemed an ideal minister, whether on the pulpit, or as pastor visiting my father's house, or in the Sunday school, where he was always present and was a born leader, or in the altar in the three months of continuous revival meetings, leading souls to Christ. I was not the only youth converted in that great revival under his ministry who became a minister." Freeman also wrote and edited Sunday school books and periodicals for the Methodist Episcopal Church, and served on several boards. His Handbook of Bible Manners and Customs was first published in 1874. He also wrote Use of Illustration in Sunday School Teaching (1867) and A Story History of the English Bible (1879). But Freeman is perhaps best known - albeit perhaps anonymously - for writing and publishing more than thirty children's books under the pseudonym Robin Ranger, beginning around 1862. These illustrated works include Up in the Garret, Out in the Garden, Summer Days, Sunshine Hall, The Magic-Lantern, Running Birds & Pigeons, and Robin Ranger's Picture Book. They were very popular with children of that era.