Life in Year One: What the World Was Like in First-Century Palestine

Summary (from the publisher): For anyone who's ever pondered what everyday life was like during the time of Jesus comes a lively and illuminating portrait of the nearly unknown world of daily life in first-century Palestine.

What was it like to live during the time of Jesus?

Where did people live?

Who did they marry?

And what was family life like?

How did people survive?

These are just some of the questions that Scott Korb answers in this engaging new book, which explores what everyday life entailed two thousand years ago in first-century Palestine, that tumultuous era when the Roman Empire was at its zenith and a new religion-Christianity-was born.

Culling information from primary sources, scholarly research, and his own travels and observations, Korb explores the nitty-gritty of real life back then-from how people fed, housed, and groomed themselves to how they kept themselves healthy. He guides the contemporary reader through the maze of customs and traditions that dictated life under the numerous groups, tribes, and peoples in the eastern Mediterranean that Rome governed two thousand years ago, and he illuminates the intriguing details of marriage, family life, health, and a host of other aspects of first-century life. The result is a book for everyone, from the armchair traveler to the amateur historian. With surprising revelations about politics and medicine, crime and personal hygiene, this book is smart and accessible popular history at its very best.

Review: This book offered very little information and it was filled with "perhaps" and "it is likely that" instead of giving any real insight into the world of first century Palestine. The only interesting tidbit I learned was that King Herod's genitals were crawling with worms when he died. Fill a book with that kind of gruesome detail and it would have been an interesting book.

Stars: 3