The Bible Unearthed

"The Bible Unearthed", subtitled "Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts" [Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman, Free Press, New York, 2001, 385 pp., ISBN 0-684-86912-8] is a 2001 book about the archaeology of ancient Israel and its relationship to the origins of the Hebrew Bible. The authors are Israel Finkelstein, Professor of Archaeology at Tel Aviv University, and Neil Asher Silberman, a contributing editor to Archaeology Magazine.

Authors' characterization

The authors characterize the book as "our attempt to formulate a new archaeological vision of ancient Israel in which the Bible is one of the most important artifacts and cultural achievements [but] not the unquestioned narrative framework into which every archaeological find must be fit." Their main contention is that

"...an archaeological analysis of the patriarchal, conquest, judges, and United Monarchy narratives [shows] that while there is no compelling archaeological evidence for any of them, there is clear archaeological evidence that places the stories themselves in a late 7th-century BCE context."

On the basis of this evidence they propose

"...an archaeological reconstruction of the distinct histories of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, highlighting the largely neglected history of the Omride Dynasty and attempting to show how the influence of Assyrian imperialism in the region set in motion a chain of events that would eventually make the poorer, more remote, and more religiously conservative kingdom of Judah the belated center of the cultic and national hopes of all Israel." [ [http://www.bibleinterp.com/commentary/Finkelstein_Silberman022001.htm Authors' commentary at Bible and Interpretation] .]

Notes

ee also

* Dating the Bible#Torah
* Biblical archaeology

References

* Finkelstein, Israel, and Silberman, Neil Asher, "The Bible Unearthed : Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts", Simon & Schuster 2002, ISBN 0-684-86912-8

External links

* [http://www.denverseminary.edu/article/the-bible-unearthed A critical review from an Evangelical perspective]
* [http://www.atheistcoalition.org/docs/bible-unearthed.html A positive review from an Atheistic perspective]
* [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A00EEDE173FF937A35751C0A9679C8B63&scp=1&sq=The+Bible+Unearthed&st=nyt Review from the New York Times]