Since the beginning of modern times it has been widely accepted that the rights of women in the biblical world, in both private and public spheres, went from bad to worse from the Bronze Age through the Christian era. The data which Gruber presents in Women in Ancient Israel and Early Judaisms demonstrates that women in ancient Levant played many more roles in the public sphere than we might have imagined and the extent of their participation in public life was far more varied than is commonly assumed. The data and argumentation included force the reader to abandon numerous stereotypes...