Table of Contents

Contents

Prologue: In the Days of King Josiah

Introduction: Archaeology and the Bible

PART ONE

The Bible as History?

Searching for the Patriarchs

Did the Exodus Happen?

The Conquest of Canaan

Who Were the Israelites?

Memories of a Golden Age?

PART TWO

The Rise and Fall of Ancient Israel

One State, One Nation, One People? (C. 930-720 BCE)

Israel's Forgotten First Kingdom (884-842 BCE)

In the Shadow of Empire (842-720 BCE)

PART THREE

Judah and the Making of Biblical History

The Transformation of Judah (C. 930-705 BCE)

Between War and Survival (705-639 BCE)

A Great Reformation (639-586 BCE)

Exile and Return (586-C. 440 BCE)

Epilogue: The Future of Biblical Israel

Appendix A: Theories of the Historicity

of the Patriarchal Age

Appendix B: Searching for Sinai

Appendix C: Alternative Theories of the Israelite Conquest

Appendix D: Why the Traditional Archaeology of the

Davidic and Solomonic Period Is Wrong

Appendix E: Identifying the Era of Manasseh

in the Archaeological Record

Appendix F: How Vast Was the Kingdom of Josiah?

Appendix G: The Boundaries of the Province of Yehud

Bibliography

Index

About the Author

ISRAEL FINKELSTEIN is the chairman of the Department of Archaeology at Tel Aviv University. He is currently director of the university's excavations in Tel Megiddo, the ancient Armageddon and Israel's most important biblical-archaeological site. NEIL ASHER SILBERMAN is a former Guggenheim Fellow, a contributing editor to ARCHAELOGY magazine, and was the coordinator of the Dorot Foundation Dead Sea Scrolls Conference in 1998.

Reviews

Baruch Halpern author of The First Historians: The Hebrew Bible and History The boldest and most exhilarating synthesis of the Bible and archaeology in fifty years.

John Shelby Spong author of Here I Stand: My Struggle for a Christianity of Integrity, Love, and Equality A bold and provocative book, well researched, well written, and powerfully argued. It challenges many of the assumptions developed by the literal religious minds of the ages, opening traditional possibilities to new conclusions.

Jonathan Kirsch Los Angeles Times A brutally honest assessment of what archaeology can and cannot tell us about the historical accuracy of the Bible...presented with both authority and panache.

Baruch Halpern author of The First Historians: The Hebrew Bible and History The boldest and most exhilarating synthesis of the Bible and archaeology in fifty years.
John Shelby Spong author of Here I Stand: My Struggle for a Christianity of Integrity, Love, and Equality A bold and provocative book, well researched, well written, and powerfully argued. It challenges many of the assumptions developed by the literal religious minds of the ages, opening traditional possibilities to new conclusions.
Jonathan Kirsch Los Angeles Times A brutally honest assessment of what archaeology can and cannot tell us about the historical accuracy of the Bible...presented with both authority and panache.

Assessing archaeological research, Finkelstein (archaeology, Tel Aviv Univ.) and Silberman (Ename Ctr. for Public Archaeology and Heritage Presentation) attempt to sort out what archaeology tells us about who wrote the Bible. They argue that religious revivals under King Josiah (639-609) and the resulting culture fundamentally shaped the Hebrew Bible. The authors argue that Josiah's reign is critically important to understanding both the textual and archaeological evidence regarding the patriarchs, exodus, conquest of Canaan, and Israelite kingdoms. More specifically, influential scribes from this period edited and arranged the text, also committing old oral traditions to literary form. The authors vividly portray the Israelite kingdoms, filling out the political and cultural background with archaeological findings. In contrast, owing to the lack of evidence, they treat the stories about earlier times as symbolic expressions of the values of Josiah's revivals. General readers will benefit from the summaries of Bible stories as well as numerous tables and maps, but they may find further inquiry a bit hampered by the topical organization of the bibliography and chapter notes and the absence of a master list to the tables and maps. This complements Thomas Thompson's The Mythic Past: Biblical Archaeology and the Myth of Israel (LJ 4/15/99) and Jeffrey Sheler's Is the Bible True? How Modern Debates and Discoveries Affirm the Essence of the Scriptures (LJ 11/15/99). Recommended for academic and large public libraries.DMarianne Orme, West Lafayette, IN Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.