Book excerpt: In this new study, distinguished biblical scholar James L. Crenshaw investigates both the pragmatic hows and the philosophical whys of education in ancient Israel and its surroundings. Asking questions as basic as "Who were the teachers and students, and from what segment of Israelite society did they come?" and "How did instructors interest young people in the things they had to say?, " Crenshaw considers the institutions and practices of the ancient Israelite educational system. He also examines the beginnings of literacy in the Ancient Near East, explores how Israel and its neighbors made the transformation from an oral to a written culture, and explores the literary works that constituted the canon of this distant culture.