Blurb:

The authors and readers of both the Old and the New Testaments lived in
what is often called a ‘prescientific’ age, when the factors that determined
much of human life—disease, famine, war, childbirth, the weather—were
believed to depend on the activity of supernatural agents: gods, demons,
spirits. These could be manipulated by various rites of intercession,
appeasement or gratitude.