Rating: 
Summary: Trite nonsense, not even worth one star
Review: K.A. Kitchen's book, "On the Reliability of the Old Testament" successfully refutes the strident claims of this sort of radical liberal agenda-driven "scholarship."
Rating: 
Summary: Subjective speculation that only raises more questions
Review: The book's main idea is that the Torah was propaganda designed to unite a nation.
Questions: What about all the wisdom literature, who wrote them? When they wrote about meditating on God's teachings, were they naively believing a work of fiction? These people would have had some oral traditions to compare it to right? They would have been pretty stupid to believe something that didn't square with their history. What about the later prophets such as Isaiah who refer frequently to the Exodus as a symbol of God's power...What good is the Exodus if it never happened?
Why go through all the trouble to concoct a story that is *actually* rather embarrassing to them because it describes their constant whining. If they really wanted to make up a bogus story, then they would probably want to make them look more like heroes, put in some action-packed adventures of how they kicked Egyptian butt, and triumphantly created a nation, rather than wandering around lost in a desert for 40 years and losing in battles. As far as we can tell, most "revisionist history" likes to paint pretty pictures, not bad pictures. Can you think of many nations who glorify their defeats? Some try to erase all evidence and not mention them in their textbooks. As another reviewer put it, these theories only raise more questions than they attempt to answer.
As I read this book, the thing I kept thinking was how archaeology seems to be VERY subjective. People take something that is unclear, do a lot of guesswork and speculate based on that guesswork. We end up with competing versions of how the Exodus happened if it happened at all.
One thing I did get out of this book is that despite the author's attempted conclusion, I realized that the Exodus really might have happened after all, considering all the circumstances and the evidence discovered so far. But, it seems like the scholars still want to downplay the evidence so they come up with a lot more unsubstantiated speculation to throw more confusion on the subject.
Finally, the last straw was when the author practically said that the Exodus could not have happened because it would have been impossible.
QUOTE: "Putting aside the possibility of divinely inspired miracles, one can hardly accept the idea of a flight of a large group of slaves from Egypt through the heavily guarded border fortifications into the desert and then into Canaan in the time of such a formidable Egyptian presence."
The whole POINT of the Exodus story is that it was "impossible" without a miracle from God! The author clearly shows his bias here.
Then, the author resorts to the old argument that if the Exodus *really* happened, we would have found evidence for it by now. This is a classic "atheist-of-the-gaps" argument, that because there's no evidence, it MUST mean it never happened. But, as archaeologists continue to work, they continue to find new evidence to disappoint them.
People use to doubt that the Israelites EVER were in Egypt, and now they find evidence that it could have really happened. They used to laugh at a world-wide flood (and still try to), even though more and more scientists recognize the great possibility of a sudden catastrophic world-wide flood (oh, but they were localized to all these different localities. coincidence I guess) Skeptics used to doubt that there were ancient cities of Babylon and Nineveh, until they unearthed them. So on and so on... They doubt so many things, but they keep finding stuff that shows that the Bible was right after all. I realized after reading this book, that people will only see what they want to see, which makes archaeology more subjective than theology.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting
Review: This book focuses on investigating on what archeological findings and data tell us about the Hebrew Bible and its contents. The authors do a pretty thorough job and look at the issue from many angles. In general, the authors believe that: - The Hebrews/Israelites were not immigrants who went from Egypt to Canaan, and were in fact an obscure cultural group who always lived in Canaan - The Hebrews / Israelites gradually rose to dominance, and the conquests of Canaan desribed in books such as Joshua are not true - The Biblical descriptions of King David's and Solomon's empire, conquests, and palaces are all exagerations. - There was not really a united Jewish religion for most of history in the Judah/Israel region, and at times in various regions there were other gods worshipped along with YHWH - Most parts of the Jewish Bible were written much later than the Jewish tradition tells us Overall, I would say that this bok is worth reading, although it does have its boring parts.
Rating: 
Summary: Exposing the roots
Review: During the past century, archaeology's tool kit gained immensely in size and quality. New, accurate dating systems pinpoint events. Researchers study humble pollen, weather conditions, changes in household implements along with building construction plans and methods. Even the "dismal science" of economics contributes information on trade, surpluses, products exchanged and records. Documents, always problematic, are subject to intense criticism and comparison. Inevitably, this investigative array has turned to the eastern Mediterranean and the societies flourishing there in "biblical times". During the 19th and early 20th Centuries, scholars rooted in the desert sands seeking evidence that Biblical episodes indeed occurred. The authors turn that process on its head, accepting the occurrence of events but challenging their dating. Biblical dating, they argue, is generally contrived.
What would be the reason for fabricating excess longevity to the founding of the Jewish people? According to the authors, it was an attempt by priest-scribes to formulate a theologically-based ideology. The purpose of this propaganda document was to justify a forced reunification of the "dual kingdoms" of Israel and Judah, long sundered, but still related. Instead of a history written over strung out centuries, Finkelstein and Silberman say the authors of the Torah flourished during the 7th Century BCE. Their intent was to galvanise the people of Judah to participate in the reconquest of Israel.
As the biblical writers put it, David founded a glorious kingdom, further enhanced by Solomon. This empire was centred on the Temple in Jerusalem. A centralised dogma with adherence to a single deity [no matter how capricious] represented by a single building in a central city was the rallying point. The Torah, then, was little more than a manifesto for conquest and unification. Past failures and successful invasions by Egyptians, Assyrians and Persians were attributed to idolatry, intermarriage with foreign women and rejection of YHWH, the all-powerful desert god. Finkelstein and Silberman credit the biblical authors with manipulating, if not fabricating past events to build the case for Jewish unity.
The book's authors bring every tool in archaeology's kit to bear in constructing their case. Each chapter opens with a "biblical account" of periods and events. The archaeological evidence is then presented for comparison. The Exodus, for example, a Jewish foundation stone of tradition and celebration, lacks all support. The Egyptians, meticulous record-keepers, say nothing of large Hebrew slave populations. Pharonic border guardians, ever alert to invasions from the east, apparently missed half a million people crossing the other way. The great infrastructure projects attributed to Solomon were more likely to have come from the despised Omride dynasty of Samaria. The evidence derives from gate construction techniques. Even business makes a contribution - it was Judah's rise in commerce that improved its level of literacy. A more learned population was more susceptible to the wave of propaganda insisting Israel and Judah should be reunited.
Finkelstein and Silberman avoid sinking into the morass of "biblical minimalism" prevalent in recent years. They don't contest the "historical reality" of biblical events. They do insist on better evidence for chronology, and for realistic assessment of the power of Jewish leaders. David couldn't have ruled more than a minuscule kingdom and nobody seems to have heard of Solomon. The authors acknowledge the long-term impact of the Torah and its successors in the Christian world. The reason, they argue, is that no other theological or political documents of the time reached so many people so intimately. Greeks, Persians, Egyptians and Babylonians all produced their commentators. None of these, however, could prescribe the daily lives of their readers. The Hebrew Bible's writer's provided this and other guides with a surety of purpose other societies never matched. It proved an effective, if historically flawed, document. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]
|
