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HOUSES AND TENTS

Bible Study Resource

People in ancient Israel used two types of housing: tents for nomadic or semi-nomadic herders; and houses, either large or small. For full information, photographs and architectural reconstructions, see BIBLE ARCHITECTURE: HOUSING

INTERESTING WEBSITES                                                 SCROLL DOWN FOR IMAGES

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TENT DWELLINGS

Woven tent of goats' hair, with front section open

Tents in modern Iran 

Inside the tent of a modern Bedouin family

Tents were used by 
     * nomadic people, who followed their flocks to pasture and water, and moved around according to the seasons
     * semi-nomadic people, who were based in a village but lived part of the year in upper or lower pasture areas.

The tents they used were larger than most modern tents, having two separate sections. 
The front section was used for work. It was the public area of the tent, open to visitors. The men of the family lived here, gathered here with family members or friends, and conducted business here if necessary. The men ate their meals in this area. The front part of the tent would be left open in warm weather.
The second or rear part of the tent was private. A dividing curtain separated it from the front area. It was here that the women, children and babies lived and slept. Jael used the privacy of her tent to hammer a tent peg through the skull of her sleeping enemy - see 
BIBLE TOP TEN: HEROINES 

Tents were made from goats' hair or dark sheep's wool, woven in rectangular strips on large looms. Women wove the fabric for the tents, stitched them together, and kept them in good repair. In effect, they were the craftspeople who produced the housing. They also set up the tents each time the clan/tribe moved to a new site.  They selected a suitable site, then using wooden mallets and tent pegs they hoisted up and secured the unwieldy tents. When it was time to move on, they took down the tents, folded them and stowed to for the journey. This would seem heavy work to us, but the Hebrew women were sturdy and skilled, and they worked as a group.

Polygamy was the norm in the early period of Hebrew history, at least for the tribal leader. An important man would have a number of wives and concubines - primary and secondary wives depending on their pre-marriage status and background. A woman with a respectable dowry could expect to be a full wife; a servant girl without dowry who married a tribal leader would probably be classed as a concubine.

To accommodate this range of wives, the Hebrews (and other nomadic tribes) used an ingenious system. Each woman had her own tent. It was her domain, containing her possessions. In it, she would receive her husband when he cared to visit. She raised her children there and also housed any personal servants she might have. This system did much to avoid rivalry or ill feeling between the various wives.

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HOUSES 

    
Artist's impression of a 1st century AD house in Palestine  

A 19th century photograph of the courtyard of a house in Palestine

  
An ordinary house had only the most basic furnishings

A reconstruction of houses within a walled city 

Many groups still use tents, but houses have largely replaced them in most parts of the world as agriculture and settled villages replace the nomadic way of life. Both sort of housing, however, continued in use throughout biblical times.

Stone for building, or mud and straw for mud bricks, was plentiful in most of Palestine, and stone was generally used at least in the foundations of houses.

At first, the basic floor plan followed the layout of the tents: one long room at the front, and another one immediately behind it. However, as villages became the predominant pattern of life, the basic floor plan of a modest house changed. Now it had a central courtyard with a number of rooms opening off it. These rooms were small by our standards, with a minimum of windows. Lattice work and shutters were used to cover window openings.

The size of the rooms was limited by the fact that rooms could only be as wide as the beams that supported the roof. Beams, usually wooden and roughly shaped, reached from one wall to the other, and were covered with a mixture of woven branches and clay, which was smoothed with a stone roller.

The inner walls were finished with a smooth coat of clay or plaster, which could be decorated with frescoes, elaborate in the houses of the rich, simpler in the houses of ordinary people. Wide benches of mud brick or stone for sitting and sleeping, and shelves for storage, were built into the structure itself.

Stairs or a wooden ladder led up onto the roof, which was used as an outdoor room that was partly shaded by matting or a ten-like superstructure. 

The inside rooms tended to be small and dark, so the courtyard and the roof were important parts of the house, used for tasks that needed good light - such as spinning and weaving, and food preparation. The flat roof area might also be used for sleeping, or for drying food or textiles (see the story of Rahab the prostitute in Joshua 2:6). In the earlier period of Jewish history, it may also have been used for bathing - Bathsheba was probably bathing herself on the flat roof of her house when she was seen by King David (see the story of this famous act of voyeurism in 2 Samuel 11:2-4).

In the courtyard of a 1st century AD house you might find:
     * the mikveh, a pool of clean rainwater used for ritual cleansing by both men and women
     * a stone-based cooking area with a fire, cooking utensils and possibly an oven
     * stone or clay implements for grinding small amounts of grain
     * a covered area where people sat while they worked or talked
     * a covered area for animals - people lived at close quarters with their animals.
This outside area was, if the weather was good which it mostly was, a center of activity and socializing.

By modern standards, the houses of people in ancient Palestine were sparsely furnished. Ordinary people sat on cushions on the floor to eat, rather than sitting on chairs at a table. They slept on padded matting filled with stuffing. Tables, couches and beds were only used in the houses of the rich.

Given this, Joseph of Nazareth was probably a builder rather than a carpenter, since the inhabitants of a small village like Nazareth did not need much furniture.

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INTERESTING SITES - photographs, reconstructions, information

BIBLE ARCHITECTURE: HOUSING
More photographs and architectural models of housing in biblical times. 

See any of the pages on BIBLE ARCHITECTURE  for fortresses, palaces and cities from the Bible.

BIBLE ART
Any pages on this site. How medieval artists ignored, or did not know about, the architecture of biblical times.

WOMEN IN THE BIBLE: CLOTHING AND HOUSING 
Housing for 'ordinary' people like Jesus and his family

BIBLE TOP TEN: HEROINES 
Jael is only able to do what she does in the privacy of her tent

BIBLE TOP TEN: BUILDINGS 
The Top Ten Buildings of the Bible 

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Housing  - Archaeology of The Bible - Bible  Study Resource
Tent dwellings, houses and villages in Bible times - archaeological evidence